


Ditch or Date

by scribe-tuesday (Leofuller)



Category: Original Work
Genre: dating show
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-05-23 09:49:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 37,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14931968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leofuller/pseuds/scribe-tuesday
Summary: "Welcome to a brand new dating show. We've given one eligible man eighteen dates to pick the girl of his dreams from our hand-picked contestants - and he's going to need your help to decide. I'm Howard McNamara, and this isDitch or Date."





	1. The Selection Panel

**Author's Note:**

> I've always stuck to the promise that I would never post a WIP on AO3, so it's only fair to warn you that this story is technically a WIP.  
> This is because the dating show has a viewer vote element which impacts which of the contestants get through to the next round, and when the relevant chapters are posted there will be survey links included so that you can provide the viewer vote, if you want to. This means that I don't actually know exactly which characters are going to be in the later chapters, so I can't write them until we get there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first few chapters were initially posted on Tumblr. New chapters will be added here as soon as we catch up!

“ _How to make arson look like spontaneous human combustion._ ”

Sarah jumps and closes her browser.

“It’s rude to read over somebody’s shoulder.”

James laughs, still leaning on the back of her chair. “The thing about working here is that I’m only about 85% sure that that’s to do with your ex and not research for a new show.”

Sarah slumps in her seat, and James pats her shoulder.

“Dickbag ex?”

“Dickbag ex. The vet rang me this morning to say that the payment for Horatio’s insurance thing hasn’t gone through. Michael was supposed to be paying that.” She absent-mindedly adjusts the framed photograph of Horatio, glaring out at them with his usual expression of fluffy feline rage.

“Arsehole.” James is just saying that because it’s the right thing to say, but she’ll take it.

“Yeah…”

“Anyway, I came to get you because Gareth has decided we need more female input into selecting the final 24 for _Ditch Or Date_.”

“Me.” Sarah gestures vaguely at herself. “Gareth wants _me_ to help pick people to go on TV and find True Love.”

James shrugs, a familiar gesture from people who are responding to Gareth’s whims.

“Surely literally anybody else in the building would be in a better frame of mind for that job?”

Sarah’s put on ten pounds just from ice cream since Michael left. She hasn’t worn any makeup to work for three weeks. She’s wearing slippers in the office.

“Gareth wants you to join us in the boardroom in fifteen, please.”

She sighs. “Fine.”

Now she’s going to have to put her shoes back on.

 

The group in the boardroom is about as awful as Sarah was expecting. There’s James, who’s kind of okay, there’s Ben from Sales who’s a walking stereotype of what he thinks is an alpha male, and then there’s Katie and Katy from Gareth’s team. Katy-with-a-y is pregnant, and Katie-with-an-i-e is going to be covering her maternity leave. Every time she moves her hands her giant engagement ring catches the light and makes Sarah want to vomit all over Katie’s skyscraper heels.

And then of course there’s Gareth, who doesn’t need an introduction.

They’ve already whittled the hundreds of applicants down to about 50, and the task today is to pick the 24 who get to be on TV.

Sarah still struggles with the idea that there are this many women who are dumb enough to want to be on their rip-off of _The Bachelor_ , but apparently they didn’t even have to scrape the barrel for these 50.

 

There’s a slideshow, with little video clips from the interviews they did with potential contestants, and it takes pretty much all day to sit through the whole thing. Sarah’s notes degenerate from coherent and relevant _(intelligent, emotionally stable)_ as the hours go by _(rabbits!)_ and after a short spike immediately following the lunch break _(just in it for the attention)_ she’s about ready to quit by the time the last five contestants are shown _(stupid hair. -10)._

They break for coffee, then gather around the table with 50 headshot photographs like they’re on _X Factor_ or something.

There are some that everybody agrees on, and some that one or other of them really wants and that nobody else objects to, and the first fifteen are easy to select. There are just as many that they’re all agreed are not what they’re looking for.

It’s kind of irritating to see what everybody’s looking for, though. Gareth wants Drama - he wants the crazy ones, the ones who will stab the others in the back to get to the prize. Ben wants the ones that he thinks are hot. James seems to be the only one who’s looking for a balance of girls who might actually get along with the bachelor, despite nobody in the room apparently knowing anything about him. Gareth must do, which means that either Katy or Katie must too, but nobody’s forthcoming with the details.

Katy and Katie are clearly favouring the girls who are saying all the right things about wanting to settle down and start a family. It’s right for the show in theory, but they’re clearly missing which ones are the backstabbing bitches who are just saying what they think the producers want to hear. Still, that’s actually what Gareth wants, so that’s probably fine.

So far Sarah’s involvement has been to veto the girl with the stupid hair.

She’s pretty much switched off from the process, as Ben and Katie debate the merits of two girls that Sarah literally cannot tell apart, when Gareth calls her attention back in.

“Come on, Sarah. You’re representing our target audience, who do you want to see?”

Sarah stares at him for a second before it sinks in that he’s saying _this show will be watched by sad single women sitting on their sofas with their cats, drowning their sorrows in Pinot Grigio_ and that he’s picked Sarah as the prime example of a sad single woman.

Before she can think of anything to say in response that would be suitable pithy without getting her fired, Gareth’s phone rings.

“Ray! Tell me you have good news!” Gareth breezes out of the boardroom, presumably to have a loud conversation in the corridor where he can be overheard by more people, and Sarah takes a deep breath.

“Can we perhaps put some of the more normal people in?”

It’s as if she hasn’t spoken.

Katy and Katie are sorting through the pictures that aren’t in the definite Yes or No piles, discarding one every now and then. Ben's leaning over their shoulders, chipping in with what he probably thinks are helpful comments.

James is texting.

Sarah sighs and opens up her laptop. She might as well make a list of the women who have made the Yes list so far.

 

When Gareth comes back into the room about fifteen minutes later there are twenty names typed up on the Yes list, and Katy, Katie and Ben have whittled the Maybes down to six.

“How are we doing, team?”

“We need to pick four of these.” Katie spreads the six photographs out on the table.

“Getting down to the wire, hey?” Gareth leans over to look at the shortlist. “Yeah, okay, yeah, put her in.” He pushes one of the pictures over to Sarah and she adds _Roxie, 22_ to her list. “And she’s a No, something just a bit too bunny-boilerish about her. Not that that’s a negative for good TV, but she was just a Bit Much.”

“Okay.” Ben tosses that picture onto the No pile. “So, three of these.”

“You guys are doing a great job.” Gareth’s phone rings again. “One sec. Hey. Hi. Yeah. Absolutely. Two secs.” He covers the bottom of his phone with his hand. “Guys, I’ve got to dash off, but can you send your final list to Casting by five thirty? Awesome.” He goes back to his call without waiting for an answer. “Absolutely, babe, that’s a given. How about I make a few calls, and..”

The door shuts behind him.

“Right.” Katy breaks the silence. “Let’s finish up here. Sarah, what do you think between these four?”

“I…Honestly, I can’t tell them apart.”

Everybody laughs as if she’s said something funny.

“Well, I like Josie.” Katy waits to see if anybody objects, and then slides the picture towards Sarah.

“And I like Amanda.” Katie pushes another picture in her direction.

“What do you reckon, James?” Ben holds up the final two. “Maddie, or Lauren?”

James appears to be genuinely thinking about it, although Sarah suspects he also can’t see the difference.

“Maddie.”

“Fab.” Ben drops Lauren onto the No pile and hands Maddie to Sarah. “Sarah, are you cool with getting the list sent off to Casting, since you’ve got it all typed up already?”

“Um. Sure.”

“Thanks.” Ben winks at her, and she hates that he’s trying to flirt with her like he does with everybody else. “So, I reckon we get to knock off now, so we should be heading over to the Welly for a couple of celebratory drinks, am I right?”

“Sounds like a plan!” James finally puts his phone away. “Shall we go and get the drinks in, get a head start?”

“My man, I like the way you think.” Ben puts his arm around James’ shoulders and angles him towards the door. “Ladies, what can we get for you?”

“Oh, I can’t.” Katy doesn’t looks in the least like she regrets not being able to join her colleagues for a drink at the _Duke of Wellington_. “We’ve got antenatal tonight.”

“Say no more. Katie?”

“Dinner with Phil’s parents. We’re trying to finalise our guest list.” The engagement ring catches the light, again.

“Rather you than me!” Ben turns to Sarah. “Sarah. What can we get in for you?”

For a second, Sarah thinks about pretending that she’s got a date, or something more pressing than _Animal Cops Houston_ to get home for, but Horatio can cope with his dinner being an hour later than normal.

“Glass of red?”

“Glass of red.” Ben points at her, although she’s not sure why, and then the boys are gone.

“Thanks for typing this up.” Katie cooes, as if it’s not Katie’s job to do the admin on Gareth’s projects. “You’re a star!”

“Yes, thank you! It’s been such fun doing this!” Katy scoops her things back into her bag and glances at her watch. “Oh, I’d better run!” She giggles. “Well, waddle!”

“Oh stop it, you, you’re not fat.” Katie picks up her own bag. “Are you okay if I walk Katy out, Sarah?”

And what can she say to that.

“Sure!” She smiles brightly, fascinated by the way they can’t tell how fake it is, and waits until the door swings shut before she mimes vomiting.

She double checks the names on the back of the photographs against her typed list, and pauses when she gets to the fifth identical blonde. If nobody can tell them apart, nobody’s going to notice if one goes missing… right? She shuffles them, picks out one at random, and removes _Helen, 24_ from the list before standing up and walking over to the No pile which she spreads out across the table, looking for…

There.

The most normal person from the whole set, dismissed by the others. There’s nothing to set her apart from the others except that she’s not a size 6 and her hair is a natural colour.

Sarah adds _Emily, 25_ to the list, saves it, emails it to Casting and shuts her laptop.

The laptop goes into her bag, the Yes photos go into one file and the No photos into another to be dropped off at her desk, and Sarah goes to the pub.


	2. Episode One - The Party

“It’s not just for one party, dumbo.” Roxie blows a stray curl out of her face. “I need to take everything for when I get picked.”

 _“If_ you get picked.”

 _“When.”_ Roxie stops at the top of the stairs. “Are you going to give me a hand with this?”

“Wasn’t planning to.” Toby waits for her to start dragging the case down one step at a time and crosses the landing to lean on the bannisters and watch. “Do you go straight away, then?”

“Yeah.” God, this case is heavy. _Thump_. “They send half the girls home and the other half go straight on to wherever it is we stay during filming.”

“So you might not come back?” Toby sounds keen on the idea. “Can I have your room?”

“It’s not, like, forever.” _Thump. Thump._

“Don’t you move in with the dude when you win?”

_Thump. Thump._

“Although of course you’d have to win.” Toby’s tone indicates exactly what he thinks her chances are. “And there are what, fifty of you?”

_Thump. Thumpthumpthumpthump._

Dad comes out of the living room. “What is that racket? Toby, why aren’t you helping Roxie with her case?”

_Thump-thump-thud._

“It’s okay, it’s too heavy for him with his noodle arms.” Roxie smiles at Dad, not needing to look at Toby to know that he’s puffing up like an angry cat.

“It’s not too heavy!”

“Great!” Dad cuts him off. “You can take it out to the car then.”

Roxie smirks at Toby as he clatters down the stairs and pushes past, and he sticks his tongue out at her.

“I don’t know how you think you’re grown up enough to go hunting for a husband when you’re still pulling faces at your brother.”

“Dad.” Roxie rescues her vanity case as the strap starts to slip off her shoulder. “You hit Uncle Mark with the _TV Times_ at Christmas because he didn’t want to watch the same film that you did, and Grandma threatened to send you both to bed with no pudding.”

“That…” Dad’s trying and failing not to smile. “That’s a fair point.”

Toby’s huffing and puffing fades as the front door swings to behind him. Roxie suppresses the reflex urge to lock him out.

“You know, whatever happens on this show…” Dad’s not comfortable with pep talks. “If this guy doesn’t choose you, it’s not a negative about you. You’re perfect just as you are.”

“Thanks Dad.” Roxie hugs him, her vanity case swinging dangerously.

“Oh, yuck, feelings.” Toby barges back in, and then pauses. “Um. I’ll just…” He carefully lifts the vanity case away from them and disappears back towards the car.

“Right.” Dad steps back briskly, although his eyes are brighter than normal. “Better get on the road, this isn’t the sort of party you can be fashionably late for!”

 

**

The party is…

There are twenty-four women getting ready in the hotel - a floor has been made available so they can get changed, use the showers and so on, and then two of the conference rooms have been turned over to the hair and makeup people, who are working their way through the contestants with terrifying efficiency.

Twenty-four attractive women scramble around hunting for the best spots to get ready, making instant friendships as they suss out the competition and help each other with awkward zips.

Twenty-four flawless women gather in conference room B, perched on the same dark red chairs where delegates of the Institute of Engineering Designers had listened to guest lecturers earlier in the day.

“This is the last part before the cameras start rolling.” Iain looks out at the rows of perfectly made-up faces in front of him. “Once you hit the doors to the function suite, you are on camera 24-7.” Except for when they’re on the toilet or in the shower, anything these women do can be filmed and might be shown on television. It’s not _Big Brother_ , there won’t be a live feed of the bedrooms when everybody’s asleep, but they’ve reserved the right to film the bedrooms all the time just in case somebody starts drama overnight and they want to edit the footage in. “So I’ll remind you all, please, have fun, get to know Thomas, be yourselves - but watch your language as much as you can and remember that if you make a fool of yourself your nan might see it.”

None of them are going to remember this after a couple of cocktails anyway. They’re going to get the embarrassing footage that the viewers want.

“So, I think that Thomas is ready for you…” Iain presses his earpiece. It’s just theatrics, Thomas’ handler notified him they were good to go about five minutes ago. “Yes. It’s time to get started, ladies!”

There’s a swell of excited chatter, and Iain holds up his hands to quiet them. “Okay, so, if we can please have…” He looks over to the doors where there are four runners with clipboards.

“Maddie and Josie.” Sammy reads out the names, and the first two women leave their seats to follow Sammy downstairs.

“Cathy-with-a-C and Laura, please.” Bex calls out the next two. They’re going to be staggering the groups, so while one pair is being introduced to Thomas, the next pair will be making final adjustments to their hair in the anteroom and another two women will be being gathered from the holding room while the fourth runner is making their way back upstairs after seeing their group safely introduced.

There’s also going to be a lot of hanging around and waiting, but for now Sammy’s swept the first pair away, Bex is gathering hers by the doors, and Cam’s stepping up with the next names.

“Amanda and Jayne.”

 

**

“How are you doing?” Howard sounds genuinely sympathetic. He understands how much is riding on this evening.

“Nervous.” Thomas laughs, fiddling with the collar of his shirt. The wardrobe team had debated over the level of formality for some time - at one point he’d been worried about ending up in a tux - but eventually they’d agreed on the open necked shirt and the blazer. At least his clothes aren’t making it hard to breathe.

It’s just his nerves that are doing that.

There are twenty-four women waiting to be introduced to him. Twenty-four women who are hoping that he might be their Mr Right. Twenty-four women who are literally going to compete to have him fall in love with them.

 

Six months ago, Thomas had been packing to move house. The pile of Selina’s abandoned belongings had been larger than he was expecting, given that she’d been gone for months by then, and Chris had found him sitting on the spare bed and staring blankly at a pile of clothes that she’d clearly decided weren’t worth taking with her.

“Mate.” Chris had taken the roll of black bin bags out of his unresisting grip. “It’s good that you’re doing this. Time for a fresh start.” He ripped a bag off the roll and shook it out. “New home, new memories. Getting rid of all the baggage.”

“New house, new me.” Thomas could hear how little it sounded like he meant it.

“New lady?” Chris started shoveling Selina’s offcasts into the bag.

Thomas had sighed. “Maybe.”

“We’ve got to get you back out there. There must be hundreds of women who’d love to get the Thomas Malone Experience.”

Thomas had just snorted at how ridiculous he was being, and stood up to get on with the packing.

 

It hadn’t been obvious how much space Selina had still been taking up in his life, even four months after she walked out of it, until the unpacking was finished and his new house seemed to have so much more room in it.

Chris had come back to the _new lady_ line of conversation at least twice a day during the business of packing, moving and unpacking, with the kind of relentlessness that only a guy who’s been your best mate since you were six could get away with, and when they’d settled on Thomas’ newly-positioned sofa in front of his just-setup TV, with the remains of a takeaway curry spread out on the table and several bottles of beer already consumed, Thomas called him out on it.

“Go on then, if you’re so certain about it. Where am I going to meet this new girlfriend?”

 

“You don’t need to be nervous.” Howard smiles at him. “You’re a great guy, the girls are going to love you.”

They’ve filmed this bit twice, now, because the first time Thomas had been so nervous that he’d somehow managed to unplug his microphone from the battery pack while he was fiddling with his collar, and they’d had to reset.

The camera guy gives them a thumbs up, this time, and then stops filming.

“Seriously, though.” Howard grins, and holy shit, Thomas is just hanging out with _Howard McNamara_ . Mum’s a massive fan of _River Road_ and Thomas has grown up watching Howard - or rather Eddie, his character on the soap opera - going through teenage and adult drama to a rather overblown degree. Howard’s an actor, radio host and TV presenter, and here he is just chatting to Thomas about how much of a catch he is. “Seriously, you don’t need to worry. All these girls are going to be falling over themselves to get you to notice them, all you need to do is smile and work out which ones you want to get to know.”

“The girls are ready.” Stephen is Thomas’ handler, which basically means that he knows where Thomas is supposed to be and what he’s supposed to be doing - which is lucky because Thomas is miles out of his depth already.

“Good luck, then.” Howard shakes his hand. “I’ll see you in a bit.” He’s going to be filming with each pair of girls before they come in to meet Thomas.

“Thank you.” Howard disappears through the doors to the next room, and Thomas takes a deep breath.

Nothing to be nervous about. He just has to meet twenty-four beautiful women and not make a fool of himself. While being filmed for a TV show.

This is all Chris’ fault.

 

*

The girls are wearing name badges, thank god. Nobody’s expecting Thomas to actually remember all twenty four names as they come in - and it probably goes in his favour that they need the viewers at home _(oh god there are going to be people watching this at home)_ to be able to remember which girl is which.

To be honest, a lot of them do look quite alike.

The first pair are Maddie and Josie. Maddie’s a flight attendant. Josie’s as terrified as Thomas is, and as he steps back from the second of twenty four hugs, their eyes meet and he realises that he’s not in this alone.

Maddie’s poised and perfect, and Josie’s perfect and nervous, and that means that some of the other girls must be human too.

Thomas breathes.

 

Cathy and Laura are next. Cathy’s got very long legs and a very short dress, and she winks over her shoulder at Thomas after they’ve been introduced and her handler’s encouraging them to go and mingle with the other girls so that the next two can be introduced.

_Maddie. Josie. Cathy. Laura._

Then there’s Amanda, tiny with a big laugh. Jayne, tall and blonde with such skinny arms that Thomas is faintly concerned that he’s going to break her with the hug.

Suze, who wobbles on her heels as she comes in. Hannah, who catches her with a giggle.

_Maddie. Josie. Cathy. Laura. Amanda. Jayne. Suze. Hannah._

Kathy’s the first to go for a kiss on the cheek. Louisa does the same, because she won’t know that nobody else has.

Mary Ann’s another one hiding her nerves. Roxie looks so like Louisa that for a second he thinks she’s come round again.

That’s only half of them, and already the names are blurring together.

 

It should get easier, once the last two girls are introduced to him and Thomas gets to go through to the cocktail party with Cassie on one arm and Jessica on the other.

There is a _lot_ of Prosecco being poured in here.

It should get easier, because Thomas should be able to relax and start chatting to these girls, but he’s far too conscious of the cameras in the room, following him around or recording some of the little groups of girls. Stephen hovers constantly, just out of sight of the cameras and ready to move him on and make sure he mingles correctly.

It’s a lot more pressure than he was expecting - as if having to flirt fairly with all these women wasn’t enough.

 

**

It’s impossible for this to be fair.

That’s not Thomas’ fault, of course, and it’s not like Laura came into this expecting it to be easy, but they’ve only got the hour and a half of this party to make enough of an impression on Thomas that he’ll want to put them through to the next round.

Half of the girls here are going home tonight, and all of them know it.

The handlers are constantly circling the party, making sure that the girls don’t mob Thomas, that he gets time to talk to them in small groups, that the cameras aren’t blocked. They’re dressed kind of like the waiters, presumably so that they blend in if they get caught on camera, and they’ve very calm.

Laura’s not feeling very calm. She got paired with Cathy for her entrance, and Cathy’s wearing a dress that leaves pretty much nothing to the imagination. It’s not hard to tell that she’s had her boobs done, for example. Laura’s going to have to make an effort, if she wants to be remembered over _that_.

Out of the corner of her eye she can see a camera turning towards her, ready to catch her hanging back on her own like a loser, so she takes a deep breath, finds a smile, and glides over to one of the groups near Thomas.

 

**

Everything feels slightly surreal, after the party. Not that things felt normal _during_ the party, but this is a different kind of surreal.

The girls are still in the function room, still drinking and talking and doing whatever it is they do when Thomas isn’t there. The cameras were still circling when Thomas was swept out of the room by Stephen and led into this brightly-lit meeting room.

It doesn’t feel very friendly. Stephen’s here with him, but the rest of the people in the room are from the production team, and although he’s met them Thomas doesn’t feel very comfortable with them.

He doesn’t feel very comfortable full stop, to be honest.

“Okay, Thomas, let’s get down to business!” Iain’s the head producer, and the only person in the room other than Stephen that Thomas can confidently name. “Time to pick the final twelve!”

He’s way too enthusiastic.

Wait. That’s not fair. Thomas should be enthusiastic, he _is_ enthusiastic, he’s possibly just met the girl who’s going to be his wife one day, it’s just that…

“Thomas.” Stephen sets a bottle of water and a plate next to him. There’s a cheese and ham sandwich on the plate, with a handful of crisps and a tiny amount of salad.

“Thank you.” Thomas pulls the plate closer to him.

“So,” Iain continues, “who are your front runners?” He gestures to the spill of photographs on the table.

“Um…” Thomas picks up the sandwich and takes a bite, looking over the photographs to gain some time while he chews.

There were waiters circling the party the whole time with trays of canapes, but every time Thomas tried to catch one they drifted away, obviously having been told not to interfere with the filming around the star of the show. He hadn’t eaten much during the day, stomach tight with nerves, and if it hadn’t been for one of the girls kidnapping a tray and bringing it with her, the sound editors would have had a lot of work to do disguising the sound of his rumbling stomach.

That’s a good place to start, actually. He can’t remember her name, but Thomas stands up to get a better look at the pictures until he can find the girl who let him eat.

“This one.” He picks up the photograph, and takes the one next to it too, the teacher with the pretty smile.

 

They let him pick eight of the final twelve, but after that the girls are starting to blur together. They look alike in person, and even more alike in their pictures.

“Got your favourites?” Iain’s assistant has been pinning the pictures to a board as he selects them.

“Uh… yes.”

“Anybody you absolutely cannot stand? Anybody make your skin crawl?” Iain gestures to the remaining pictures, and Thomas shakes his head. Nobody stood out for the wrong reasons.

“Excellent.” Iain leans over and starts sorting rapidly through the remaining sixteen. “So, the last four… Who’s causing issues?”

One of the handlers who was looking after the girls steps up and picks out a couple of photos. “I’ve heard two different groups of girls complaining about her already.”

“Lovely.” Iain passes that picture over to go on the board.

“And either of these two. She’s desperate for camera time, and she’s just plain weird.”

“Cool, yes, take both. One more?” Iain glances over at Thomas. “Any preference?”

“Uh…” Thomas takes another look over the pictures. One girl to save, and the others all go without him ever getting the chance to know if they could have been The One.

“Take your time.” Iain says, in tones that mean _hurry up and choose._ “It’s a big decision.”

Thomas stares at the photographs. Iain clears his throat.

“Although, we do need to get on with filming the next bit, so…”

 

*

It’s like waiting for exam results. It’s that weird patch of time between handing in your final paper, and getting hold of that envelope that tells you whether you succeeded or failed. There’s nothing any of them can do now except wait for the next stage, the decision is out of their hands.

 

They’re back in the original room, the one where they’d waited before going down to meet Thomas, but this time they’ve pulled the chairs out of their neat rows and formed little huddles with their allies. Suze is surprised to find that while she’s obviously got everything crossed that she’ll be picked, she’s rooting hard for some of her new friends, too. Hannah, who was paired with her for their entrance and stopped her making a complete tit of herself and breaking an ankle in these stupid shoes. Laura, who gets completely tongue-tied around not only Thomas but also most of the cameras. Maddie, who’s been knocking back the prosecco all night and still seems to be totally sober. This is going to be a rollercoaster, but it’ll be easier with friends.

They pulled four chairs together, gathered around their suitcases until somebody from production made them open their circle and put the suitcases behind them, so the angles are better for the cameras.

Even now, the cameras are rolling, picking up their nerves as the tension builds and builds. They’ve even got access to the toilets, or at least the bit by the sinks so they can catch any gossip early.

 

Everybody’s been promised that no bodily function sounds will be broadcast.

 

There’s a table full of sandwiches, and after an evening of flirting and nibbling delicately on the occasional canape so that there was no danger of being filmed with pastry crumbs all over her dress, Suze has had enough of pretending to be dainty.

“Fuck it, I’m getting some food.” Oops, not supposed to swear. She pushes her chair back a bit, and when none of the others seem to be joining her she makes her way over to the table.

“I am absolutely starving.” Emily’s the only one at the table, which isn’t a massive surprise. Emily’s not fat, but she’s not quite as skinny as the rest of them. She’s got a dinner plate firmly in one hand and she’s rapidly arranging a selection of sandwiches and sausage rolls. She catches Suze watching, and grins. “It’s not all for me! Well, probably not.” She nods her head towards where she’s left her bag. “I’m hoping if I take some over, I can get Cassie and Jayne to eat something. I’m a bit worried that nobody’s eating and everybody’s drinking.”

“That’s a good idea.” Suze grabs a plate. “None of us have eaten enough for that much booze, and it’s going to be a long night.”

It’s going to be a long night for everybody, win or lose.

 

It’s probably two hours since Thomas left the party when Sammy comes into the room.

“Okay, ladies, fifteen minutes.”

There’s a dash for the mirrors to reapply lipstick and make sure that everything’s still perfect.

Suze checks her hair, smooths her dress over her hips, then takes a deep breath and grabs the extending handle of her suitcase. “Here we go, girls.”

 

There are two 36-seater buses waiting outside with their luggage compartments open. Bex is standing by the door to one bus, Cam next to the other, both holding clipboards.

Sammy coaxes the girls into a wide semi-circle with their bags just behind them, and then Howard reappears from wherever he’s been since the party ended.

“Ladies.” It’s always more obvious that they’re on camera, when Howard’s there. “It’s time for us to say goodbye to half of you.”

They shift uneasily, as if they didn’t already know this.

“We’re going to call you up one by one. Please take your bag to the bus, and take a seat.” He pauses for effect. “One of these buses is going to the house where you will be living for the duration of the competition. One of these buses is going straight to the station.” Howard looks along the line of girls. “And you’re not going to know which bus is which until the journey has started.”

Hannah reaches out without looking and grabs Suze’s hand. Suze can feel the cameras zoom in on them as she squeezes back.

“Ladies, the best of luck.”

Bex takes a step forwards with her clipboard. “Maddie.”

Maddie takes in a sharp breath, and then grabs her case and walks forwards. The driver takes her bag and stows it under the bus, and Maddie makes her way carefully up the steps, turning at the top to wave to them before she disappears behind the tinted windows.

Attention turns to Cam.

“Josie.”

Josie takes her bag to the second bus, and now it suddenly feels like this is a competition. One of them is definitely going home.

 

Back to Bex.

“Jayne”

 

Cam.

“Kathy-with-a-K.”

 

Bex.

“Laura.”

She’s with Maddie, and Suze barely has time to start hoping that Bex’s bus is the winning one when Cam says

“Hannah.”

Hannah’s grip on Suze’s hand tightens for a second before she lets go, puts on her smile and takes her case to Cam’s bus.

That’s it, then. They’re not all going to be in the final twelve.

 

“Samantha.”

Suze wishes her dress had sleeves, it’s not very warm out here.

“Suze.” Oh, God, that’s her.

Cam’s bus. Hannah’s bus. Suze wraps her fingers around the handle of her case and starts forwards. The driver takes the bag from her without speaking, and she heads blindly for the door, up the steps (which is _hard_ in these heels) and into the warmth of the bus.

“Suze!” Hannah bounces back out of her seat to give her a hug. “We’re together!”

There’s a camera at the back, catching their faces as they walk onto the bus, and the cameraman’s assistant waves at them to sit down. Suze shoves her handbag onto the seats across the aisle from Hannah and flops down. She’s got ballet flats in the bag and she can’t wait to change her shoes.

It doesn’t take very long for the girls to file on. Somebody’s counting out loud, and soon they’re at nine, and then ten.

“I can’t guess.” Hannah says. “There’s nobody who I thought was a definitely yes or a definite no, so I can’t tell whether we’re in with a good chance or not…”

Suze hasn’t been able to work it out either. Any of the girls could have been Thomas’ choice. Any of the girls on this bus could be winners, but so could any of the girls on the other bus.

“She’s still out there.” Jessica’s a couple of rows in front, kneeling on her seat and peering out through the window at the last few girls. “Nothing’s confirmed yet.”

“Who is?” Suze can’t see, Hannah’s got that side of the bus.

“Emily.” Jessica’s dripping with scorn. “So we don’t know which is the losing bus yet.”

That’s mean. Suze almost doesn’t notice as Cathy-with-a-C is the eleventh girl onto their bus. Mean, but realistic. Emily’s not on the same level as the rest of them, and out of the whole twenty four she’s the obvious candidate to be going home.

There’s still a camera at the back of the bus, and one of the others has climbed into the driver’s seat, kneeling backwards so that he can film up the bus and catch their faces as the last girl steps on board.

 

“Shit.” Jessica slumps down in her seat. “This is ridiculous. What a waste of time.”

She must have been loud enough to hear, but Emily squares her shoulders, keeps her chin up, and makes her way to an empty seat.

 

*

“Emily’s on the other bus!” Samantha’s been looking out of the window and tracking which girls get onto Cam’s bus. There’s a little rustle of relief along the aisle.

Laura doesn’t want to think of herself as judgemental, but clearly Emily was never going to get through. If Emily’s on the other bus, then this one must be the girls who’ve been selected to continue. She looks around, sharing smiles with the girls who are now going to be her competition.

“Hey, Jessica’s on the other bus too, right?”

Everybody’s looking around, counting heads as their bus starts to reverse.

“Yes, she was called just before me.” Laura can’t even remember that girl’s name. Hopefully she won’t be the only one who needs a refresh on who’s who.

“Oh, thank god.” Jayne’s across the aisle from her. “She came across as a bit of a bitch, didn’t she?”

There’s a ripple of laughter through the bus. Tomorrow they’ll be competing against each other, but for now they can share their victory.

 

It’s only a few minutes later when the bus slows down and pulls over.

 

*

The atmosphere on the bus is… awkward. Nobody wants to say that they’re giving up. Nobody wants to believe it until the moment they pull up in front of the station, but…

Emily’s on the bus, and their chances don’t look good.

 

Emily’s on the bus, and nobody’s really talking. She’d smiled at Suze on the way past, and Suze had tried to smile back, but…

It’s not Emily’s fault. She didn’t make Thomas pick the girls on the other bus. It’s just that she’s their confirmation that they didn’t make it.

 

It’s only a few minutes later when the bus slows down and pulls over.

 

*

Howard gets onto the bus.

“Ladies.”

 

*

Howard gets onto the bus.

“Ladies.”

 

*

They’ve pulled over at the side of the road. They’re still in London. Traffic snakes past, and everywhere’s brightly lit.

 

*

“I’m afraid that this is the end of your journey.”

 

*

“We’ve got one more passenger to collect.”

 

*

Thomas gets onto the bus.

 

*

The lights across the street are the side entrance to the station.


	3. The Final Twelve

The moment seems to stretch, endless, while they stare at the front of the bus in disbelief, and then somebody squeals and there’s a flurry of frantic reorganisation.

Nobody had mentioned that Thomas would be travelling out to the filming location on the bus with them.

Jessica’s quickest to offer him the seat next to her, even though there are still empty doubles, and he sits down with a smile.

“I’ll keep switching it up, if you don’t mind…” he smiles around at them all like a man who hasn’t yet realised that whatever he wants to do is going to be just  _ fine  _ with everybody. “I want to get a chance to sit with each of you.”

Suze turns to grin at Hannah, and switches to share her seat when Hannah pats the chair beside her.

“We did it!” She can’t keep the smile off her face. “We’re through!”

Hannah links their arms with a squeeze. “Keep an eye out for when he moves!” She whispers. “We need to make sure Jessica doesn’t monopolise him!”

 

**

 

“So, we have our final twelve.” Howard addresses the camera direct. “And now the competition can really begin. Over the next week, Thomas is going to go on four small group dates, taking three of our ladies each time. After each date, you at home get the chance to vote for the girl you most want to see make it through to the next week. The girl with the most votes gets straight through, and then Thomas has to decide between the remaining two - who is he going to ditch, and who is he going to date? Remember - you get to save your favourite.” He smiles. “Join us next time, on  _ Ditch Or Date.” _

 

**

 

 


	4. Episode Two - Date One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Welcome back to Ditch or Date. Coming up tonight-”  
>   
>  _The doorbell rings. The girls look at one another. “Date card!”_  
>   
>  _Close up: Roxie. She wrinkles her nose, as if something smells bad._  
>   
>  _Close up: Josie. There is wind in her hair, and she shrieks. It’s not unattractive. “Don’t eat that!”_  
>   
>  “And at the end of the show, we’ll be opening the phone lines for the public vote.”

The house is _insane_. It’s _massive._ Apparently it’s owned by a friend of somebody senior at the TV company, and they’re happy to lend it to the show for a few weeks while they’re overseas. Or something. They told them about it last night but it’s all kind of a blur.

Josie’s not the only one feeling a bit delicate today.

 

The bus arrived here in the dark - it was late by the time they left the party, so it must have been well after midnight when they let Thomas off at the end of a long winding driveway and drove on up to the house without him. Bex came round and took all their phones at some point after leaving London, once they'd all called their families, and the production team had been through their suitcases while the girls were down in the party to confiscate any forbidden electronics.

They’d been told this was going to happen, but it still felt a bit weird unpacking her bag this morning and realising that stuff had been moved. Josie hadn’t tried to bring anything on the banned list, but some of the girls have had things removed for the duration of filming.

Anyway, Josie’s so used to using her phone for everything that she doesn’t even own a watch, so she’s got no idea what time they piled off the bus and into the house, or how much later they actually went to bed.

 

The clock on the oven reads 13:07 when Josie shuffles into the kitchen in search of water and carbs.

Apparently there’s a cleaning team, which is lucky given the state she vaguely remembers the place being in when she went to bed. All the surfaces are clean, although the loaf of sliced bread by the toaster suggests that somebody else is already up.

There’s an actual teapot next to the kettle, and it’s promisingly heavy.

“Morning!” Cathy’s going to be the easiest one to remember now they’re ditched the name badges, because she’s the only one with short hair. Well. The only one of the white girls with short hair. Kathy's got short hair too, but Josie’s not going to get her confused with the blondes. Mostly it looks like the producers have been picking a particular type of girl, and Josie fits that look exactly.

“Morning.” Josie looks around blankly. Mugs.

Cathy laughs. “In here.” She opens one of the cupboards and pulls out two chunky striped cups.

“Ta. Did you make the tea?”

“Nah, that was Emily. I’d have done bag-in-a-mug and not thought about anybody else.”

Josie lifts the lid on the pot cautiously. “It’s not loose is it?” She can’t cope with strainers and all that, not like her nan used to make tea.

“Nope, just bags.” Cathy takes pity, elbows her gently aside and pours for Josie and herself. “Grab us the milk, would you?”

 

Emily and Cassie are in one of the big communal rooms. Emily’s curled up at one end of a couch, and Cassie’s spread along the rest of it with her head on the armrest and her hair hanging down over the end.

“Afternoon”

Yeah, yeah, it’s not really morning any more.

“Thanks for the tea.” Josie salutes Emily with her cup. Anybody who prepares caffeine for her is a friend.

“No problem.”

“Anybody else up yet?” Cathy tucks herself into an armchair.

“I think Jessica and Amanda have found the gym.”

“There’s a gym?” Josie wasn’t planning on moving too much, but if everybody else is, she’s going to need to keep up…

“Pffft.” Cassie waves a hand. “Fitness room. Who’s mad enough to work out on the first day of their holiday, anyway?”

“It’s not actually a holiday.” Josie gets the impression that Emily’s already said this to Cassie more than once.

Cassie laughs. “I have no work to do. No homework to mark. No lessons to plan. No exams to prepare for. Believe me, I’m on holiday!”

“You’re a teacher, then?” Josie sinks into one of the other couches. It’s just as comfortable as she remembers from last night.

“Yeah. Key stage three and four English.”

“Yuck.” Cathy wrinkles her nose. “Teenagers.”

“They’re not so bad.”

“Really?”

Cassie laughs again. “Yeah, actually they are kind of disgusting sometimes, but I have to find the good parts.” She sits up and flails until she can reach the glass of juice on the table. “What do you do?”

“I’m a mechanic.” Cathy grins when they all stare. “What?” It’s clear from her face that she knows exactly why they’re all so surprised. “It’s not just a job for guys, you know. And you don’t have to dress like a guy to do a traditionally masculine job, either. I can’t have long nails, and obviously I wear trousers to work because it’s practical, but there’s no reason not to make an effort otherwise.”

There’s a slightly awkward pause.

“Cool.” Josie sips her tea for something to do. “I feel kind of dull in comparison. I’m a store manager.”

Emily snorts and raises her hand. “Mortgage advisor. I win on the boring.”

 

They’ve been told that today was going to be a rest day - nothing significant was scheduled and Thomas wouldn’t be around - and that they would need to be assembled in the main room, camera-ready, for a short while before dinner.

They always have to be camera-ready, though. Maybe there’s going to be something official this evening, but there are two camera crews just hanging out in the house with them, doing a surprisingly good job of being unobtrusive. Josie’s caught herself twice today already, forgetting that they’re being filmed.

There’s a private booth, too, set up in a small room on the ground floor. It’s just a couch and a camera, so they can sit and vent without the rest of the house hearing them. Mostly so far people just want to be excited about being here, but Josie can see it being a valuable space later on when you don’t really know who you can trust.

 

There’s a definite shift in formality, though, when they gather in the main room at six. They’d been told not to dress up, which just means not wearing the evening dresses they’ve brought for the parties. There’s still a lot of leg on show, nobody’s just chilling in jeans and a t-shirt. Not even Emily.

They’re in charge of their own hair and makeup now, no more support from the crews. Josie’s perfectly happy doing her own, she’s had plenty of practice in making herself look hot for a night out and it’s a lot easier when there aren’t twenty four of you fighting over eight mirrors. Josie’s sharing a bedroom and bathroom with Kathy and Louisa, and Kathy’s hair doesn’t seem to need anything doing to it. Josie’s fascinated by how it’s so different from her own, but doesn’t really know whether it’s okay to ask questions about styling and maintenance and so on. Maybe when she knows Kathy a bit better.

Anyway, it means that she got unrestricted access to the mirror in the bedroom while Kathy and Louisa shared the ridiculously long bathroom counter, and she’s all done up in time to wander casually down the corridor and see how everybody else is getting on.

“Hold still.”

“I don’t-”

“Stop talking.”

When Josie sticks her head around the door of Jessica, Roxie and Emily’s room, Roxie’s putting on her jewellery and Cassie’s doing Emily’s makeup.

“Look up.”

Emily does as she’s told and Cassie expertly applies liquid eyeliner. “Don’t move for a sec while it dries.” She spots Josie and gives her a little wave. “Ready already?”

“Yeah. How are you getting on?”

Cassie looks at her watch. “Right on schedule. I’m done, Emily’s nearly done, Roxie’s spent twenty minutes trying to pick a necklace…”

Roxie turns away from the mirror, one necklace on and another in each hand. “I don’t know!”

Josie crosses the room and takes the blue pendant out of Roxie’s hand. “That one’s too long for the neckline on that dress. The one you’ve got on is lovely.” She puts the pendant down on the dressing table.

“Sure?”

“Sure.” It doesn’t really matter. That necklace really does look fine, and Roxie’s stressing over nothing.

“Okay. Jessica said-”

“We’re not listening to Jessica.” Emily cuts in. “Jessica doesn’t say helpful things.”

Ooh, gossip. “What happened?”

“Jessica has been in the bathroom since ten to four, and just before she went downstairs she made some rather pointed comments about me not having made an effort.” Emily pulls in a breath and lets it out again. “I thought I looked okay, but..”

Cassie uncaps the mascara and cuts off any chance for Emily to upset herself. “Okay, ready for the last bit. Hold still.”

“Where is Jessica?” The bathroom door is wide open and she’s clearly not still here if the others are talking about her like that.

“She’s gone downstairs to scope out the best spot on the sofa.” Roxie drops her discarded necklaces into her jewellery roll and does it up. “Looking for the best lighting or something.”

Cassie snorts. “Chatting up the camera guys to make sure she gets in shot a lot.”

Josie grins. “I’ll go down and get in the way.”

 

They know why they’ve been gathered together, of course. Thomas isn’t here today, but the whole point of this show is that they’re supposed to be going on dates with him, so…

“Date card!” About half of them chorus it, when the doorbell rings, and Josie’s palms are suddenly sweaty.

“I’ll go!” Jessica’s already out of her seat, of course, and halfway to the door before anybody else can move. She returns with an envelope, which she opens like she’s presenting an Oscar.

“Roxie. Josie. Cassie. _Will you monkey around with me?”_

Each name is greeted with squeals, and Josie’s so surprised to find that she’s on the very first date that she almost doesn’t get to enjoy the speed with which Jessica hides her disappointment.

“Monkey around.” Amanda repeats it slowly. “Monkey around. What do you think it is?”

“Is there a zoo near here?” There’s a pause after Hannah’s question, as they realise that they’re not entirely sure where they actually are.

“Guess we find out tomorrow!” Roxie grins at Josie, and Josie can’t help but smile back. First date!

  
**

Iain’s slightly disappointed with this group. All three of the girls are coming across as sweet and good natured, and there’s not a lot of drama to promote as they edit.

He’s got some great footage of them in the car on the way to the site, carefully presented so that’s it’s not obvious how early they’d had to get up, and some fantastic reaction shots as they arrive at the zoo. They’d had to come in early to film these first bits before the place opened, so that they could stroll in through the gates to find Thomas waiting for them without any nosy tourists looking on.

Thomas was a lot less nervous today, according to Stephen, possibly because there were only three girls vying for his attention and the setting was a lot less formal. Who knows, maybe the guy just really loves zoo animals. He was certainly enthusiastic enough in explaining the _keeper for a day_ concept to the girls.

There’s another great set of reaction shots as the girls are handed overalls and wellington boots, and the penny drops that this is not a day for glamour.

 

The girls get fifteen minutes to get changed, and of course they manage to turn shapeless mud-green overalls into something that actually looks okay. There are embroidered name patches on the breast pocket, mostly for the viewers’ benefit. The team can tell the girls apart okay by now, but Roxie and Josie do look very alike and it could be confusing given that this is going to be the first proper episode actually focusing on the girls.

Cassie’s petite, and the way she’s rolled up the sleeves on her size XS overalls helps to emphasise this. Cute but capable.

Roxie’s making the most of being a couple of years younger than the others. She’d taken the warning about being involved in a practical activity on board, and her hair’s up in a flawless ponytail, her makeup is simple and she’s coming across as needing somebody to look after her. Iain’s pretty sure that she’s perfectly able to look after herself, but if playing to her age is the angle she’s going for, he can work with that.

Josie’s altogether more glamorous, wearing her overalls with an attitude that says she can look hot in anything, no matter what they ask her to do. Even shovelling elephant dung.

…that’s not what they’re doing, but Iain would have _loved_ to see the reaction shots from _that_ announcement.

  
**

Roxie’s wellies are too big, and her feet slide every time she takes a step, but Thomas smiles at her and holds out a hand.

“Roxie, would you like to join me?”

Well of _course_ she bloody does.

 

The thing about penguins, right, is that they’re really cute. They waddle around like they know exactly what’s up, and then they’re so graceful in the water, and they bring each other gifts… Roxie loves penguins.

“I love penguins!”

And Thomas offers her a hand as they climb into the back of the enclosure, and he doesn’t let go afterwards, and generally things are pretty great-

Youtube videos do not prepare you adequately for the _smell._

Thomas laughs at the look on her face, but he doesn’t sound mean and he doesn’t let go of her hand, so hopefully she looked cute. There’s bound to be footage of her wrinkling her nose when this episode airs.

One of the zoo people hands Thomas a bucket full of fish, and then they’re allowed in with the actual penguins.

The actual penguins clearly know what the bucket contains, and Roxie’s the focus of a super cute stampede.

“Here.” One of the zoo people grabs a fish from Thomas’ bucket and holds it out so the greediest penguin can demonstrate what they need to be doing, and then they’re left alone. Just Roxie and Thomas. And the penguins

And the film crew. And the zoo people hanging back out of shot. And all the visitors who are pressed up against the glass watching them being filmed feeding the penguins.

Very romantic.

It might not be romantic, but it is fun, once you get over how gross the fish are. The penguins are cute, and you kind of get used to the smell. And the Thomas is right there with her, and they get to flirt as they hand out fish, and he lets her direct him to make sure that the little scrawny penguin gets a fair share.

And then when they step out of the enclosure into the little back room where they can hose down their boots, when it’s just the two of them (and the film crew), Roxie’s taking advantage of the opportunity to brace herself again his shoulder while she checks that the fish goop and penguin poo is gone from the soles of her wellies, and Thomas…

She looks up at him, as she’s putting her foot back down from checking, and he’s just watching her, right there, right up close, and it just makes sense to stretch up on tip toe (damn these boots) and kiss him.

The hand she had on his shoulder trails naturally down to his chest, and then his hands are around her waist and she might be wearing overalls and smelling of penguins but honestly? It’s pretty much perfect.

  
**

It’s weird, hanging around waiting for Thomas and Roxie to come back. Like, it’s nice to relax just a little bit, never forgetting that the second camera crew is there, but it’s just Josie, and Cassie, and Sammy from the production team, and the weather’s quite nice so they’re just chilling in the picnic area.

Cassie’s got hold of a children’s worksheet and they’re going through the trivia questions.

It’s really hard when they can’t google, and apparently Sammy’s not allowed a phone either in case the girls try to borrow it.

“How long is an African elephant pregnancy?” Cassie’s just read the question out when Josie spots Thomas and Roxie coming back. They look happy.

“Hey, how are you doing?” Thomas asks as soon as he’s in earshot, and of course they both smile and tell him they’re great.

“Josie?” Thomas holds out a hand, and she manages not to scramble as she gets up. _Yes!_

 

It feels almost private, up on the giraffe viewing platform with a whole pile of branches of something that’s apparently really tasty, if you’re a giraffe.

It’s not private, of course, because they’re being recorded for a TV show, and the zookeeper has to interrupt every few minutes because giraffe bull Ferdinand is particularly taken with Josie’s hair and keeps trying to eat that instead of the yummy leaves they’re trying to feed him.

Thomas is obviously struggling not to laugh, in case she’s upset about it, so next time Ferdinand bypasses the branch in her hand and aims for a mouthful of her hair, Josie pushes him away in exactly the same way the keeper did (she can see the keeper tense and relax out of the corner of her eye, so she must be doing it right) and grins as she turns to the crew.

“Any chance I can get a hat or something?”

They film the rest of the segment with her wearing a baseball cap embroidered with the name of the zoo, her hair swept up and caught in a ponytail by the fastener of the cap. Josie can be a good sport.

 

It starts to feel a bit more like a date once the staff don’t have to rescue her from the giraffes every few minutes, and one of the females decides that Ferdinand has had enough attention and shoulders him out of the way. At least, Josie assumes that’s what happened, giraffe shoulders are a long way down from the feeding platform.

Anyway, they’ve got the whole park spread out in front of them, the sun’s shining, and when Thomas slides closer and maneuvers her in front of him so he can press up against her while they feed the giraffes, it’s like the rest of the people on the platform fade away. She can’t really see them, past Thomas, and anyway why would she want to look around when he’s right there? The butterflies build in her stomach, because this moment feels right and she kind of knows what’s coming, but it still feels completely natural when Thomas leans down and kisses her.

 

A few paces back, Hakim zooms in to capture the kiss, and Ferdinand appears in the back of the shot with perfect unplanned framing.

  
**

“Hi!” Cassie forgets about the whole TV show for a second, forgets about Thomas even as she drops his hand and steps forwards, because that right there is _a baby rhino._ “Hi, Sweetheart!”

Chike’s being hand-reared by the zoo. His mother rejected him, and he’s been transferred from another zoo for his own safety. He butts up against the fence, apparently thrilled to see Cassie.

“What do I..?” She looks around for the keeper, who’s already climbing over the fence and dropping down next to Chike.

“He likes it when you scratch behind his ears.” The keeper demonstrates, and then Cassie’s reaching over the fence to pet a baby rhino.

“He’s like a really heavy dog!” She looks up at Thomas, and he returns her grin. Chike snorts to recapture her attention, and Thomas joins her at the fence.

“Can we come in?” He asks the keeper. Chike shifts position for optimum head-scratching.

“You can, if you don’t mind that he might try and sit in your lap.” The keeper laughs at the look on Thomas’ face. “We’ll stop him, and he’ll calm down after a minute, but he likes a cuddle.”

Cassie’s already swinging a leg over the fence.

 

**

The whole day is more than a little bit weird. From the early start, to the awkward staging of certain moments and the endless waiting around between one-on-one time, Thomas is finding the whole things kind of surreal.

There are moments that stand out, though. Roxie wrinkling her nose at the fish smell. Josie keeping the hat on for the rest of the day even after they’d changed out of their overalls and boots and gone on a group stroll through the butterfly house. Cassie’s unbridled delight at hanging out with Chike, so that Thomas couldn’t help but smile back and be glad he got to share that moment with her.

It’s been weird, but it’s been awesome. He’s got to hang out with three beautiful girls, he’s had behind the scenes access to a zoo which is actually _really cool,_ he’s kissed two girls and he definitely wants to kiss Cassie too, even if the moment wasn’t quite right.

It doesn’t seem real that tomorrow he gets to do something different with another three girls, and that at the end of the week he has to break it off with some of them. He doesn’t feel like he’s had enough time with any of them, and he’s got nine others to date before he gets to make any decisions.

This is going to be tough.

 

**

Howard smiles at the cameras. “Thomas has a difficult decision to make now - he’s spent time with three of our girls today, but only two of them can go through to the next round. In just a few minutes the phone lines will be open so that you can call in to save the girl you want to see go straight through to the next round. The girl with the most votes from each date will go through, and then Thomas will have to choose between the two remaining girls - who is he going to Ditch, and who is he going to Date?”

“The numbers are on your screen now for each of the girls. Calls cost 64 pence per minute, please don’t call before the lines are open as your vote won’t count and you may still be charged. Please ask the bill payer’s permission before calling.”

The camera cuts back to Howard, and he flashes his smile again. “Line are open... now. We’ll see you next time, on _Ditch or Date.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Viewer voting has now closed for this round


	5. Episode Three - Date Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Welcome back to Ditch or Date. Coming up tonight-”  
>  _Jessica and Thomas, sitting somewhere scenic, his arm around her shoulders._  
>  _Hannah, wearing a helmet, eyes shut. “Oh God, I’m going to die.”_  
>  “And at the end of the show, we’ll be opening the phone lines for the public vote.”

“Hi.” Sammy knocks on the doorframe and leans into the room. “Louisa, have you got a sec?”

“Sure.” They’re just sitting around, recycling the debate about what Josie, Cassie and Roxie are doing with Thomas right now, so Lou doesn’t think she’s going to miss anything as she unfolds herself from the sofa. “What’s up?”

“Nothing major.” Sammy leads her towards one of the back rooms that they’re not really using, waving away the camera that tries to follow them.

_ That _ makes Lou nervous. What does Sammy want to say that needs to be off camera. “Is everything okay?”

“Oh, god, yeah, nothing to worry about!” Sammy’s obviously just realised that this might look like bad news from outside is about to be delivered. “I just needed to check something with you privately.”

That doesn’t feel very reassuring, but as soon as the door closes behind them Sammy gets right to the point.

“You said on your forms that you’re scared of heights.”

“Yes.”

“Do you mean that in a cute, I’ll-need-to-hold-Thomas’-hand sort of a way, or is it a genuine, absolutely-no-way-I’m-terrified sort of thing?”

“The second one.” Lou feels a little bit sick just thinking about it.

“So something involving heights would be a really shitty date?”

Lou’s surprised enough by the swearing to laugh. “Yeah”

“Okay.”

“O-kay?” Does that mean they’re going to make her go up something?

“I’ll make sure you don’t get sent on that one.” Sammy sounds genuine, and Lou finds herself relaxing a bit. “It’s not fair on you and it’s not fair on the other girls on that date if you’re genuinely freaked out.”

“Thank you.”

“Just don’t mention this to anyone, yeah?” Sammy winks. “I’m not supposed to do this.”

Lou grins. “This conversation never happened.”

 

The date card comes late afternoon, while they’re all sitting around in the main room like it’s natural and they haven’t been told to gather. Roxie, Josie and Cassie are still out, but the remaining nine girls are all hoping to be next.

Jessica gets to the card first again, of course.

“Hannah, Amanda, Jessica,” she pauses for a little fist-pump that’s not as cute as she probably thinks it is.  _ “The only way is up.” _

Lou’s suddenly glad that her name isn’t on the card.

 

**

Jess sets her alarm for five forty five.

The car will be picking them up at seven, and she washed her hair last night so that should be plenty of time, if she’s organised.

Jess is always organised, when it’s important.

And this is important.

 

There’s no weak link in her date trio - nobody like Emily. Hannah’s one of the blondes, the girls who look so alike that they  _ must _ be Thomas’ type or why would he have picked so many? And she’s a fashion buyer, so her outfits are always on point. Amanda’s a bit more of a mystery, but she’s confident and seems happy all the time so her competition must be going to plan as well.

The more detailed instructions which arrived after the date card told them to dress for activity, banning skirts and suggesting that long trousers might be better than shorts. Sturdy footwear, no loose flowing fabrics.

 

Jess shuts off the alarm before it can disturb Roxie or Emily and rolls out of bed, grabbing the clothes that she’d hung ready the night before and heading straight into the bathroom where she puts the lights on and get to work.

She showered last night, and if they’re getting active today there’s no benefit to another shower now, just a proper wash and lots of deodorant. She plaits her hair and clears the counter for her makeup. Roxie’s stuff is everywhere, so Jess pushes it all to the side. It’s pretty obvious sometimes how young Roxie is, she’s not looking after her things and she’s not thinking about how they have to share the space.

Emily’s got three bottles in the shower, two on the counter and a laughably empty makeup bag. Not that that’s a bad thing for Jess, anybody who’s not really here to compete makes the whole thing a bit easier for those of them who are.

Makeup done, it’s time to get dressed. These are Jess’ second favourite jeans, they make her bum look great but she can still move in them - the ones that look the best are more restrictive and not the right choice for something that needs proper shoes. Her shirt is three-quarter length sleeves, clingy fabric, and won’t show sweat patches. She’s got one of her lightweight workout jackets to throw on over the top, one without a massive logo, and she’s going to look like this took her ten minutes instead of - she checks the time on her FitBit - forty five.

Downstairs for an espresso, a bowl of porridge and a banana, because nobody wants to eat much in front of the cameras in case it looks ugly but you can’t be at your best without the right fuel, then back upstairs to brush her teeth and grab the day bag she put together yesterday evening.

Change of clothes and shoes, deodorant, makeup repair kit, miniature mouthwash.

 

Jess is sitting on the couch, looking totally relaxed, with five minutes to spare. It doesn’t hurt to have the other two think that she’s chilled about the whole thing, get in their heads a bit.

This is a competition, after all, and Jess has her eye on the prize.

 

**

They start out with instructors, once they’ve met up with Thomas and found out what they’re actually doing today. 

Apparently the people who run this place insisted that they had to have safety briefings and basic instruction without the distraction of Thomas or close-up cameras. Thomas has been led away to a safe distance, where he’s getting the same run through of where to put his feet and what all the ropes do, and the cameras have been pulled back to get general footage but not catch what anybody’s saying. 

Hannah’s pretty glad of all that, because this is not as easy as it looks.

They’re going to be climbing up actual cliffs, and abseiling down something else. From the ground, the rock face looks kind of daunting, and Hannah’s glad to have one-on-one support for the first bit. They’re in some kind of practice area at the moment. Over to her right, Jessica already has both feet off the ground while her instructor is saying positive things. To her left, Amanda’s laughing at something her instructor is saying while he adjusts the ropes on her harness.

Hannah swallows and looks up at the wall in front of her. “Okay…”

“Give it a try, love. It’s not as hard as you think, once you get started.” Unlike Amanda’s instructor, Mike is about fifty and pretty ordinary to look at. “Put your left hand here, on this bit, right hand over here, and then take your right foot-“

He makes it all seem so simple, like there’s nothing to be stressed about, and he’s exactly what Hannah needs right now.

 

**

This is  _ fun. _ Hannah and Jessica are both super focussed, Jessica like she’s determined to go from zero to olympic in the sport (do they do olympic rock climbing? That would be cool) and Hannah like if she misses a single word her instructor says it could lead to disaster.

Amanda’s enjoying it, though. The weather’s nice, but not too hot, the gorge where they’re climbing is beautiful, she’s going to get to hang out (possibly literally!) with Thomas, and while she’s waiting for her turn she gets to have Carlos teach her to scramble up the rocks. It’s not hard to notice that he’s watching her bum as she climbs, but then, she’s looking at his when he’s demonstrating.

They’ve both got nice arses, who could blame them?

 

The instructors have a bit of a conflab, and it’s pretty obvious that Thomas has been told to pick her first. They’re doing two climbs and an abseil, and it looks like they’re being allocated to the girls based on their abilities.

Thomas and Amanda will make the first climb, while Jessica and Hannah get in a bit more practice.

“Okay, this is the easy one.” Carlos gives her a nudge as he double-checks her harness, while Thomas is getting some last minute pointers from his own instructor. “Shouldn’t be any problem, but if you get stuck stay calm and we rescue.” He grins. “Maybe not me, probably Jamie. They don’t want me on camera, I’m too pretty.”

It would be a bit distracting to put him on screen with Thomas, that’s true.

Thomas. Amanda is here on a date with Thomas. Yes.

 

It’s a good climb. It’s harder than the practice wall, but when Amanda gets a bit stuck Thomas is two feet away with suggestions on where to put her hands (where on the  _ rocks,  _ shut up, not on a first date). She hits an easy patch after that, so she’s just above Thomas when he gets stuck himself and she can look down and return the favour. None of that damsel in distress bollocks.

By the time they get to the top they’re both out of breath and laughing from the adrenaline, so it feels comfortable to flop down next to him on a patch of grass (next to a waiting camera crew) and when her hand brushes against his he tangles their fingers together naturally. 

“How do we get down?” Nobody had mentioned that in the briefing.

“There’s a path.” Thomas sits up and looks around, pointing when he spots it. “It comes out back at the bottom.” He unclips his harness, handing it over to the guy who’s been waiting for them just out of shot. “Shall we?”

Probably most people have to go back down with all their gear, harnesses still on, hats in their hands, but Amanda and Thomas get to hand it all off to a member of staff so that the camera can catch them having a romantic stroll back to the bottom. Conversation is easy, her hand doesn’t feel sweaty where Thomas has laced their fingers together, and it seems like no time before they’re back at the start.

“Thank you.” Thomas squeezes her fingers, but it’s not like he’s going to attempt to kiss her in front of the others. He lets go of her hand, and Amanda straightens her jacket.

The poor guy who’d trailed them down the path with all their stuff hands it off to the instructors, and Jamie’s hovering ready to get Thomas kitted up to go again. Thomas smiles at the group.

“Jessica?”

Jessica’s already bouncing forwards, her own instructor in tow. Amanda glances around at the others, finding Hannah looking even more nervous than she was when Amanda left, and then Carlos catches her attention, her safety gear piled at his feet.

“Good job! You were awesome!” He sweeps her up in a hug, and seriously, his cologne is amazing.

“Thanks.” Amanda grins when he lets her go and passes her the harness to step into. “I had a great teacher.”

 

**

It seems kind of unnecessary that he had to take the safety gear off to walk down the path when he was going to have to put it all back on again at the bottom, but Thomas has picked up pretty quickly that he’s going to be doing a lot of unnecessary things to make it look better on camera.

Jessica’s already got her gear on, of course, and it almost looks like she wants to start without him except for the way she smiles at him over her shoulder as he approaches the start point.

“Ready for this?” He doesn’t need to ask, really.

“So ready!” She’s bouncing a little bit, already hooked onto the safety ropes, as Jamie pulls his attention momentarily back to his own ropes.

“Let’s go, then!”

The first climb had been easy, with Amanda scrambling up beside him, although they’d been more focussed on the rocks than on each other. This one’s a bit more complicated, but Jessica’s calm and determined and Thomas finds that he’s pushing himself to keep up.

 

The party is all a bit of a blur, now. Thomas remembers talking to Jessica at the party, mostly because the girls had generally spoken to him in pairs and small groups and she was one of the few who’d approached him independently. He doesn’t remember picking her photo out at the end, but he honestly couldn’t tell you now if that was because she was one of the production team’s picks or if he just doesn’t remember in the drama of cutting half of the contestants in one go.

Anyway, this is his chance to get to know her - if he can catch her. 

Jessica’s clearly not the damsel-in-distress type, he’s not going to be able to help her out like he did Amanda, and he’s so focussed on keeping up that he doesn’t notice until it’s too late that he’s running out of handholds.

“Um...”

Jessica looks down over her shoulder and he smiles helplessly. “I seem to be stuck.”

He’s not sure what to expect. He’d kind of pretended a bit, with Amanda, just after she’d got stuck to make sure that she wasn’t embarrassed by it, but now he really can’t see where to go next and the idea of backing down in order to pick a different route seems impossible because he can’t see where to put his feet.

Jessica obviously doesn’t have similar concerns, because she moves easily backwards until she’s almost level with him.

“Got a good grip with the left?”

“Yup.” Slightly sweaty, but secure.

“Okay, stretch out with your right, there’s a good one just here.” She taps the rock. Thomas takes a breath, leans in to the rock face and then stretches for the hand hold she’s indicating. It’s bigger than it looks from this angle, and he wouldn’t have found it otherwise.

“Now bring your left foot in close to your right…” He follows the instructions. “Good. Right foot up to here, and move your left hand to where your right hand was. That’s it. Now, if I move across a bit...”

Jessica moves away, up and to the right, and there’s a path to the top opening up in front of him.

“Thanks.” He climbs up level with her, and she grins at him before they climb on to the top, side by side.

 

“You were good at that, when I got stuck.” Thomas leans back on the grass, propped up on his elbows, while they get their breath back.

“I had a better view, from that angle.” Jessica smiles as she shrugs. “And you listened to what I was saying.”

“You sounded very confident.”

“I guess I’m used to giving instructions…”

Thomas digs in his memory for what she does out in the real world, and hopes he’s got it right.

“You’re the fitness instructor, yeah?”

“Yes.” Jessica smiles again, obviously pleased that he’s remembered, and all of these girls are attractive but she’s particularly pretty just here in the sunlight. 

“It was just right, though. Very reassuring.” He lifts himself up enough to extend an arm and she immediately cuddles in next to him. He doesn’t articulate that she’d talked him through the difficult patch without making him feel stupid, and always making it clear that she absolutely believed he could do what she was asking. When he glances down, she’s looking up at him, and sitting here on the cliff with the countryside spread out in front of them and the adrenaline of the climb still buzzing through him, it’s the perfect moment for a kiss.

 

**

_ Ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck _

While the other two were having their one on one time with Thomas, Hannah has climbed up the practice faces, once with Jessica who barely acknowledged her existence while absorbing every single piece of information about rock climbing from her tiny, scary instructor, and once with Amanda who was laughing and joking to the point where it did help to distract Hannah from her own struggles if only because she was more worried that Amanda was going to fall off due to not paying proper attention.

Maybe it’s because her time with Thomas had already happened, that Amanda was able to relax a bit more, but Hannah’s still a bit shocked at how blatantly she’s flirting with her instructor. Okay, fair enough, he’s hot, but the whole point of being here is Thomas and it seems a bit rude to flirt with somebody else. 

Even if Thomas is spending quality one on one time with another woman while she’s doing it.

Hannah’s instructor Mike kind of reminds her of her dad, and Jessica’s instructor is a tiny but tough woman who looks like she might be into girls but wouldn’t tolerate any kind of flirting that might distract from the serious business of rock climbing, so it’s not like either of them are going to be following Amanda’s example anyway, but still.

Dating competition, hello?

 

So, it’s great that she didn’t have to go first and try to get Thomas to like her while she struggled and was generally bad at rock climbing, and it’s also a really really good thing that she didn’t have to do the difficult climb, but…

That means that she’s got to do the abseil.

They’ve all had a practise, and it’s not too bad with Mike there right next to her telling her exactly which rope to keep taught and which to loosen, but now she’s got to do this with Thomas. Just the two of them, with nobody there to help if she pulls the wrong rope.

“You okay?” Thomas looks concerned. That’s just great, way to make an impression, Hannah.

“Uh-huh.”

“Sure?”

“No…”

He laughs, but it’s not mean. “Don’t like heights?”

“It’s not heights that bother me.” They’ve just got to the top of the path, and Mike’s hovering in her peripheral vision with the safety gear. “I don’t mind being up high. I could sit up here all day and admire the view, I just don’t like trusting my life to a rope.”

“It’s all perfectly safe.” Thomas squeezes her hand and she hopes her palm sweat isn’t too obvious.

“That’s what Mike keeps saying!” She nods to Mike as he and Thomas’ instructor swoop in with the harnesses and hard hats. “It’s just… why would we do this when we could walk down?”

She smiles, so that Thomas can assume she’s joking, and he laughs along with her, and then Mike steps in with the clips and ropes that her life will now depend on and it’s easier to focus on that than on trying to be cute and funny.

 

The absolute worst bit on the practice run was stepping over the edge of the cliff to get started, and after a couple of wobbles they pull the cameras back a bit and Mike steps in to help her into position.

“You’ll need to let go of my hand, love.”

“Mm-hmm.” Hannah’s fingers won’t let go.

“Hey.” Thomas reaches out and takes her hand. “I’m right here with you.”

“You need both hands on your ropes!” That’s embarrassingly high-pitched.

“Oh, right.” Thomas lets go again, and she’s got no choice but to grab her own ropes, since Mike’s out of reach now, and that was probably Thomas’ intention. She looks over at him and grins sheepishly, trying to ignore the guy who’s abseiling past her on the other side with the camera. Show-off.

“Okay then.” They’re just kind of stood here now, sticking out from the rock face, and Hannah’s been talked through this enough times that she’d started doing it herself on the practice runs. “Just walk backwards…”

Thomas keeps pace with her, and after a few feet she’s feeling comfortable enough to look over at him. It’s a relief to find that he’s concentrating hard too, and not laughing at her.

“I guess this isn’t so bad…” As soon as she says it she’s thinking  _ famous last words _ but for once karma doesn’t jump up and bite her.

“Easy, right? Just walking backwards.” Thomas grins over at her, and it’s so so stupid to get that butterfly feeling when she’s hanging from a cliff with her life in her hands. She can’t even hold hands. Still, there’s eye contact and that twisty-stomach feeling that says they’d being doing more than smiling at each other if they had their feet on the ground.

 

There’s nobody around when they finally reach the bottom - for a given value of nobody. It’s insane how quickly everybody’s adjusting to seeing a camera crew and production staff as not actually being there, as the people who’d been helping with the ropes at the bottom melt away and the camera crew tries to be unobtrusive.

“We made it.” Thomas unclips himself from the ropes.

“My hands are shaking!” Hannah holds her hands up to show him the tremors, which had started the moment her feet touched the ground. “I can’t…” She struggles with the clip on her own harness, and then Thomas comes to help her.

“That was awesome!”

“Let’s never do it again!”

Thomas laughs, as the ropes fall free, and then he’s just right there in her personal space and she’s still shaking with the adrenaline.

Their hard hats clash on the first attempt, and Thomas lifts hers away, moving back in so smoothly that she doesn’t even have time to worry about her hair before she’s in the middle of the best first kiss she’s ever had.

 

**

Howard smiles at the cameras. “Thomas has a difficult decision to make now - he’s spent time with three of our girls today, but only two of them can go through to the next round. In just a few minutes the phone lines will be open so that you can call in to save the girl you want to see go straight through to the next round. The girl with the most votes from each date will go through, and then Thomas will have to choose between the two remaining girls - who is he going to Ditch, and who is he going to Date?”

“The numbers are on your screen now for each of the girls. Calls cost 64 pence per minute, please don’t call before the lines are open as your vote won’t count and you may still be charged. Please ask the bill payer’s permission before calling.”

The camera cuts back to Howard, and he flashes his smile again. “Lines are open… now. We’ll see you next time, on  _ Ditch or Date.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Viewer voting has now closed for this round


	6. Episode Four - Date Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Welcome back to Ditch or Date. Coming up tonight-”  
>  _Cathy, laughing, holds her hands up, covered in paint._  
>  _Thomas looks very serious, talking to a teddy bear that’s sitting on a table in front of him. “Don’t mess this up for me, okay?”_  
>  “And at the end of the show, we’ll be opening the phone lines for the public vote.”

It’s absolutely pissing it down outside when Mary-Ann’s alarm buzzes to tell her to get up. She’s been lying awake, staring at the ceiling in the dim light that comes in through the curtains, listening to Suze snoring and waiting for it to stop being so early.

Whatever they’re doing on the date today, it’s either not that far away or it’s a much later start than the first two, because the car is coming for Mary-Ann, Cathy and Emily at a much more civilised hour.

So of course she’s awake hours before she needs to be.

 

The date card had been pretty vague, naturally, and the instructions they got afterwards weren’t much more enlightening. They don’t have as long a list of stuff to take as the others did, and they’re agreed that it looks like an indoor activity.

Possibly a messy one, given the clothing recommendations, but at least they don’t need walking boots or wet weather gear.

So the rain that’s rattling against the window is kind of relaxing, rather than something to worry about.

 

Emily’s already downstairs, still in her pyjamas and waiting for the coffee machine to finish brewing. It’s some kind of space-age monstrosity that only Cathy, Emily and Jessica can operate - and Cathy’s a qualified mechanic, Jessica’s probably never failed at anything in her entire life ever, and Emily… well. Emily’s good at finding food and drink.

Emily’s the most likely to take pity on the rest of them and make a full pot of coffee for other people to help themselves to, though. Jessica’s an espresso girl, and Cathy will happily make coffee for anybody else who happens to want one while she’s there, but Emily just assumes that other people will drink it if she makes it.

She’s not wrong.

“Morning.” Mary-Ann yawns as she speaks. She might have been awake for a while but this is the first time she’s actually  _ said _ anything today.

“Morning!” Emily smiles from where she’s leaning against the counter. Everybody else has brought cute pyjamas or sexy negligees to wear to bed, but Emily’s wearing a well-washed set of oversized pyjamas and a pair of slippers. Mary-Ann’s feet are cold against the tiled floor, and given that Thomas is never here to see their nightwear she can’t help thinking that Emily might have got it right. Although, there are cameras around sometimes, so Emily’s running the risk of being shown to the nation looking… well. Like that.

Emily gets a second mug out of the cupboard and sets it next to the one that’s standing ready for her own coffee. Mary-Ann stumbles over to the fridge for the milk.

“You ready for today?”

Mary-Ann thinks before she answers. “Yeah, actually, I think I am. I mean, I’m a bit nervous, obvs, but…”

“At least we’re not rock climbing?”

“At least we’re not rock climbing!”

And she doesn’t have to compete with Miss Perfect, because Jessica’s been on her date already, and she doesn’t have any of the identikit blondes in her group. Cathy’s about as different from the rest of the white girls as she can be, so she’s probably not really Thomas’ type, and Emily… 

Well. Mary-Ann can be confident that today won’t be too much of a challenge.

 

**

It’s some kind of craft centre. They’ve been here for five minutes and Cathy’s already convinced that it’s full of hippie types, all floaty tie-dye and herbal teas.

They’re doing three different projects today, and they’re going to be paired up differently for each one so they each get some one-on-one time with Thomas.

Cathy would definitely have prefered to be rock climbing, or at the zoo.

The only good thing about this is that they’re indoors, given the weather.

 

They get shown to a side room where they can leave their things, their wet coats and the bags with their changes of clothes and so on, and then Cathy’s first up.

There are two tables, covered in jewellery supplies, and the guy who runs the place announces that they’re competing today in each of their areas. Thomas and Cathy will work together to follow the brief - with their own design input. Mary-Ann and Emily will do the same at the other table. At the end of each session, the results will be judged by some of the kids who are using the centre today.

Cathy dropped Art the moment she could, at school, but at least this particular challenge is assembling things out of wire which is about as close to her comfort zone as she’s got any chance of getting.

“Ready?” Thomas has got one hand on the instruction sheet that’s currently face down on the table. The guy at the front of the room has a stopwatch in his hand.

“Born ready!”

Anyway, it’s not the craft competition she’s trying to win, here.

 

**

It’s hard not to keep glancing across the room to where Cathy and Thomas are laughing as they sort through their supplies. They haven’t looked over toward Mary-Ann once, but then that’s kind of the point. Thomas is suppose to be focused on Cathy right now.

Emily’s focused on the instructions.

“Okay.” She looks up from the sheet. “Doesn’t look too difficult to actually  _ do _ , we just need some… artistic flair.” She pauses. “Do you have artistic flair? I don’t think I do.”

 

**

It probably isn’t supposed to take this long to complete the project, which is basically just threading beads onto wire and twisting things together, but the point is to give them time to talk to each other.

Cathy’s never been artistic, but Thomas looked kind of blank when faced with the rows of pots of coloured beads, so she’d taken the lead in picking out what she wanted to work with.

They’re laying the beads out on a sheet of paper to decide on a pattern when she realises what it looks like and starts to laugh.

“What?” Thomas pauses in reorganising beads in two different shades of blue.

“Is it just me…” Cathy manages to stop laughing but can’t keep the grin off her face. “Or are we designing jewellery to go with the Man City football kit?”

Thomas stares at the beads in front of him for a moment and then splutters into laughter. “Oh my god, I can see it!” He pulls the diagram she’s sketched towards him and looks at it. “We need to make this third bit look like the away kit…”

  
  


**

“So.” Cathy dips her paintbrush into the red paint and carefully traces the swirling line they’d penciled onto the ceramic plate. “Are we going to tell the rest of the girls what we’ve been doing today, or shall we be vague and mysterious?”

Emily snorts, filling in one of the outlines in yellow. Over her shoulder, Cathy can see Thomas and Mary-Ann with their heads together over their own pottery-painting.

“I don’t think it matters. If we tell them, Jessica’s going to say it was lame, and if we don’t then she’ll make comments about how it must have gone really badly if we don’t want to talk about it.

“Yeah, but it’s not like we care what Jessica thinks, right?”

Emily shrugs. “I mean, I don’t really care what she thinks, but she just never stops.”

Emily’s sharing a room with Jessica, Cathy remembers suddenly.

“It’s just endless. Like, I get it, I know she’s amazing but she doesn’t have to keep rubbing it in all the time.”

“She’s a bit of a bitch, though.” Cathy keeps her voice down so that Thomas couldn’t overhear even if he wasn’t talking to Mary-Ann. “And I don’t know how many seasons of  _ The Bachelor _ you’ve watched, but the bitchy girl never wins.”

The camera crew moves to get a better angle on their painting, and Cathy remembers that they’re not supposed to mention other TV shows but  _ especially _ not  _ The Bachelor. _ Whoops.

Emily grins at her, but they respect the rules and move on to safer subjects.

 

**

It’s not that Mary-Ann is competitive, exactly, but she’s got three brothers and a sister, and four of her cousins grew up in the same street as her family, and so it’s natural that she’s had to compete a bit to get noticed.

Kian and Jerome are the oldest, so they’re bigger and louder than everybody else. Romy’s the baby. Evie got in trouble for the attention, first with their parents, then with the teachers, and then in the traditional way that means Mary-Ann’s an auntie now. Mary-Ann got her share by trying to be better than anybody else. Better grades. Winning at the athletics club. Being the tidy, helpful child so that she could smirk whenever anybody yelled  _ why can’t you be more like Mary-Ann _ at one of the others.

She loves her family, wouldn’t swap a single one of them (...well. Make her a good offer for Jerome, maybe…) but she’s come out of it wanting to be the best at whatever she does.

Even when what she’s doing is painting a design on a pottery dish on a date.

Thomas nudges her as he refreshes his paint brush. “Looks good so far.”

It does, of course. Mary-Ann got the impression that he would have been quite happy to sit back and let her take artistic control, but this is a competition that’s being judged by children and so having a guy’s input on the design is a good thing. They’d skipped over abstract and decided that this shallow dish should have a picture, a scene, and then they’d had to agree that dinosaurs were possibly a bit too complicated for the time limit they’ve been set.

So the bowl is full of fish, like looking down into an aquarium. Mary-Ann’s good at drawing, even if she doesn’t really enjoy it, and once they’d agreed she’d quickly sketched out a number of fish while Thomas drew in some plant fronds because this is supposed to be a couples activity and she’d suppressed the automatic  _ just let me do it _ that these kind of tasks inspire.

Honestly, making them compete together against somebody else is just as likely to make them fight as to pull them together

Huh. Maybe that’s the point.

 

**

“I’m not exactly sure how they’re supposed to judge this bit.” Emily stands with her hands on her hips and surveys the pile of bits and pieces they’ve selected from the supplies table. “I mean, it’s basically  _ build-a-bear _ , it’s not really… artistic. We just have to hope that the judges like ours better.” She glances up at Thomas. “Although I think I like this challenge more than the other two.”

Thomas smiles and Emily laughs at herself. “God, that sounds like such a line. I do really mean that I think making a bear is more fun than jewellery making or pottery painting.” Hang on, that isn’t going to sound right. “Um. Not that I wouldn’t have more fun with you than with either of the other two. Um.”

Thomas is laughing at her now, and Emily stops trying to dig herself out. “Oh, whatever. I liked working with them, and hopefully I’ll like working with you.”

Thomas grins as he picks up the sad shell of a bear that they’re going to turn into a prize-winning toy. “Hopefully you will.”

 

**

Cathy doesn’t like small children. She’s walked past those shops where you can make your own soft toys and they’re always brightly coloured nightmares of high pitched enthusiasm.

Mary-Ann doesn’t look much more enthusiastic, and they’re both only too aware of Emily and Thomas laughing together across the room

“Okay, so.” Cathy pulls Mary-Ann’s attention back to the task in hand. “How are we going to tackle this?”

Mary-Ann purses her lips as she looks over the instructions again. “Maybe we need a target market.”

“You mean, make one for a specific type of kid?”

“Yeah.”

“Anyone in particular?”

“My nephew’s two.”

“Okay, cool. What’s he into?”

Mary-Ann looks at the options in front of them. “How about a monkey?”

“Sure.”

“...a… spaceman monkey?”

“Space monkey it is.”

 

**

From the moment Thomas had spotted the tiny hi-vis jacket, there was no question that they’d be creating  _ Construction Worker Bear.  _ Emily’s found jeans, there’s a little t-shirt to go under the jacket, and Thomas has a hard hat in one hand while he digs through the shoes with the other.

“Do you reckon they’ve got steel toe-caps?” 

Emily looks up from where she’s stitching the little patch they’d been given with the show’s logo onto the bear’s jacket. “I hope so. He’ll be in violation of safety regulations otherwise.”

“Hmm.” Thomas picks up a pair of converse to show her. “These no good then?”

“Would you let him work on your building site in those?”

“Fair point.” Thomas puts them down again and picks up a pair of black boots. Well, they’re probably boots, all the footwear is so rounded and shaped to stay on the toys’ feet that there’s very little difference between shoes and boots. “What about these?”

Emily pretends to consider it. “Acceptable, I think.”

Thomas grins and brings hat and boots over to the table. “What’s next?”

 

“He’s a bit… lumpy.” Mary-Ann surveys Albert critically. It turns out Cathy’s absorbed a number of facts about animals in space at some point in the past, and since the US space programme had gone with the rather unoriginal Albert, Albert II, Albert III and so on for their first monkeys, there was only one name for their project.

Albert’s being stuffed, at the moment, and while his arms are good and bulky they’re having trouble getting enough of the stuffing into his legs.

Mary-Ann lifts him into a standing position, although he’s not designed to stand. “Needs more work.”

Next to her, Cathy gets the giggles as she pokes at Albert’s foot. “Somebody’s been skipping Leg Day!”

 

**

The girls look surprised when they’re told that they’re going out for dinner. It hadn’t been a feature of the first two dates, and maybe they were expecting to just get back in the car and go back to the house now that the winners of each task have been announced.

Thomas knew it was coming, of course, because Stephen had told him the plan for the day. Stephen had also made several suggestive comments, with  _ Monty Python _ levels of  _ wink wink nudge nudge _ innuendo, that the reason for the evening part of the date was because the daytime hadn’t actually given Thomas any time alone with each of the girls.

 

They start out sharing a table, grouped awkwardly around one side and two ends of a table that can normally seat eight, so that half the table is clear for camera shots. It’s like eating dinner in a sitcom, but without the canned laughter.

Cathy pounced on the seat to his right, and Mary-Ann’s got the corner just to his left, leaving Emily opposite her. Everybody’s drinking, and nobody’s eating although a wooden board with a selection of breads and dipping oils has just been delivered.

It’s actually less awkward than he thought it might be. One side effect of the way the day was organised is that the girls have all spent time working together too, and they do seem to genuinely get along. There are a couple of shared jokes that must come from the house, because they all laugh along and Thomas feels slightly out of his depth, although not in a bad way.

It’s like being out with a girlfriend and her friends - except that he’s not sure which one of them would be his girlfriend in this scenario. 

He’s going to have to pick, though, at some point. One of these girls has to go home at the end of this round of dates.

 

It’s a tapas restaurant, and when the first trays of dishes arrive Thomas is supposed to take one of the girls over to a smaller table that’s out of sight of their main table, so that they can get some more one-on-one.

“Mary-Ann?”

She’s quick to join him, of course, and somebody from the production team redirects the restaurant staff so that only vegetarian dishes are sent to the private table.

Once they’re settled, Thomas raises his glass in a toast. “To our prize-winning pottery!

Mary-Ann smiles as she clinks her glass against his. 

It’s hard to get to know the girls when they’re all presenting the side of themselves they want him to see. They want him to like them, they want to move forward to the next round of the competition, and sometimes there are visible moments when they pause and think before they react. Mary-Ann’s no exception, but the moment when their painted dish was chosen over Cathy and Emily’s plate was absolutely genuine.

So. Mary-Ann likes winning. 

Mary-Ann has multiple siblings, and a successful job as assistant manager at an art gallery, although it’s clear that her interest is limited to the business side rather than the creation of art. She’s in her late twenties, and physically attractive in a way that seems effortless compared to the careful presentation of some of the others. To be honest, Thomas finds her a little bit intimidating. Fascinating, but intimidating.

 

They move some of the food from the serving dishes to their plates, and they drink more wine as they talk, and then Stephen gives Thomas the nod that he’s supposed to wrap up this bit.

“Shall we rejoin the others?”

Mary-Ann smiles, like she’d like that, although it doesn’t reach her eyes. It’s normal that any of the girls would want to keep his attention for herself.

 

It seems ridiculous that he has to sit down and pass a minute of small talk before he invites Cathy to join him. They all know it’s just a filler before the next one-on-one.

 

Cathy launches right back into the football conversation they were having earlier.

“Nobody else wants to watch it, back at the house.” Sports are probably on the carefully curated list of tv programmes the girls can get - there’s a limit to what live shows they can watch, although that won’t really kick in until the programme starts to air and they’re not allowed to get messages from anybody outside about how they’re being perceived by the public. The risk of somebody getting into the crowd at a football match in order to send secret messages is pretty slim, though.

They get through their analysis of the FA cup and about half a dish of  _ Patatas Bravas _ before Thomas has to walk her back to the group.

It’s been fun, but really it’s the kind of conversation he’d have with any of his friends.

Also, this set-up isn’t working the way the production team sort of hoped that it would. It’s great to get to chat with the girls a bit more, but this is not the right atmosphere for physical romance to develop. You don’t go for a first kiss during dinner, you wait until you’re walking her home afterwards. If you want to lean in for a kiss between the starter and the main, that’s something you do in an established relationship.

 

Emily pauses their conversation when the food arrives. “Have you eaten much or have you been talking too much?”

“Mostly talking.” Thomas admits. The food smells good but it’s hard to eat much while holding a conversation.

“Okay, so, I’ve been eating garlicky things which is an absolute no-no on dates unless your date also eats something with garlic in, so, in order to balance things out you should ask me a question that needs a long answer and then eat some of these little pastry things while I talk, because they’re amazing and it would be a shame to send them back.”

“Okay.” Thomas takes the dish that she’s indicating and racks his brain for a suitable long-answer question. “So… What made you apply to go on the show?”

“Honest answer?”

“Honest answer.”

Emily grins. “Right, so, I was on a hen weekend. We’d hired a cottage, we’d been out doing activities during the day, one of those awful  _ It’s A Knockout _ assault courses where everything’s inflatable and you’re trying to run races on soapy plastic sheets - and I am really bad at that kind of stuff, by the way - and then we’d been out for dinner and drinks and dancing and all that jazz.” She transfers some of the potatoes to her plate, eating them in small mouthfuls between sentences. Thomas isn’t sure that she’s aware she’s doing it.

“And we get back to the cottage, and I’m the only single girl in the whole group of like… ten of us? Some of them I’ve known my whole entire life and some of them are the bride’s friends from uni and work and so on, bit of a mix, but somehow everybody’s decided that I need a boyfriend right now, like, right that minute, and there’s really patchy wifi at the cottage so they keep trying to persuade me to sign up for this dating site or that dating site and the sites keep crashing before anybody can get a photo uploaded…”

“And you’re… cool with this?” It’s not clear. Thomas takes another of the garlic things, which are actually very good.

“Pfft.” Emily grabs her wine glass. “I mean, I didn’t have a choice? But it was a laugh, and I’d been drinking too, and the bride was having fun which is the main point of the weekend. Anyway, none of the dating sites were working because of how bad the wifi was, and then somebody found the website for this show and managed to download the application form somehow. And since we didn’t need to be online for that bit, we managed to get it completely filled out.” She takes a swig from her wine and swaps the glass for her fork. “To be honest, I don’t actually remember the details of what happened next, but I think it involved a disney karaoke DVD and that’s really best forgotten about. Anyway, there was no phone signal at the cottage either, so it wasn’t until the next afternoon when we were driving home and I got coverage again that my phone picked up the automatic email thing, you know,  _ thank you for your application we will be in touch,  _ and it was a bit late by then. I never thought I’d get through, I mean, what are the chances? And then I got invited for an interview, so I thought, what the hell, why not? And then I got through to the party and it seemed a bit rude to be a no-show, and…” She shrugs. “Here I am.”

“By accident.”

“Pretty much, yeah,”

“I’m not sure if I ought to be offended.” Thomas jokes.

“Well, it’s not like we knew anything about you until the party, is it? It’s not like we applied specifically to date you.”

“Disappointed?” He can’t even pretend that he’s worried.

Emily grins and makes a point of looking him up and down. “You’ll do.”

 

**

Howard smiles at the cameras. “Thomas has a difficult decision to make now - he’s spent time with three of our girls today, but only two of them can go through to the next round. In just a few minutes the phone lines will be open so that you can call in to save the girl you want to see go straight through to the next round. The girl with the most votes from each date will go through, and then Thomas will have to choose between the two remaining girls - who is he going to Ditch, and who is he going to Date?”

“The numbers are on your screen now for each of the girls. Calls cost 64 pence per minute, please don’t call before the lines are open as your vote won’t count and you may still be charged. Please ask the bill payer’s permission before calling.”

The camera cuts back to Howard, and he flashes his smile again. “Lines are open… now. We’ll see you next time, on  _ Ditch or Date.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Viewer voting has now closed for this round


	7. Episode Five -Date Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Welcome back to Ditch or Date. Coming up tonight-”  
>   
>  _A car pulls up in an industrial estate. Somebody hurries up to it with an umbrella._  
>   
>  _Close up: Louisa. She winces and covers her eyes_  
>   
>  _Close up: Kathy. Her expression is absolutely focussed and she seems unaware of the camera_  
>   
>  “And at the end of the show, we’ll be opening the phone lines for the public vote.”

Some people are doing a better job than others at hiding that they’re jealous of Cathy, Emily and Mary-Ann for getting to have dinner with Thomas as well as their daytime date.

Some people can shrug it off and just seem to be happy for their friends, because all the dates have been different.

Some people (naming no names,  _ Jessica)  _ have been bitching about how it wasn’t fair, because  _ they _ didn’t get to have dinner on  _ their _ date, and clearly it’s favouritism.

Kathy doesn’t really care, because she’s still got her date ahead of her and who knows, maybe she’ll get dinner with Thomas too.

 

_ Suze, Kathy, Louise - let’s stay on track! _

The cards are always vague. They’re wondering if it’s hiking, maybe, although the instructions say trainers rather than walking boots. Trousers are required, no skirts, but otherwise it’s not very helpful.

It’s an early start, too, but that could mean that the date starts early, like the girls who were at the zoo by eight o’clock, or that it’s further away like the rock climbing place.

 

“I hope we’re indoors.” Louisa squints at the sky like that’ll tell her if this rain’s going to let up.

“At least it’s not as bad as yesterday?” Kathy’s not going to stress about it. If they’re outside they’re going to get wet and that’s just how it is. “They didn’t tell us to bring wet weather gear, though?”

“That’s true.” They’re wearing jackets, of course, because it’s early and it’s chilly, but Sammy and Bex are hovering with golf umbrellas ready to escort them to the car when the driver reappears from wherever he’s gone.

“Hey, here.” Suze appears suddenly behind them on the porch. “Take this.” She’s carrying three travel mugs and looks seconds away from dropping them. Kathy rescues two of them. “Ta.” Suze dumps her day bag on the floor by her feet and puts a fabric tote bag on top of it rather more carefully. “Now. The red one is Lou’s…” She takes the red cup out of Kathy’s hand and passes it to Louisa. “The blue one is mine and the green one is Kathy’s.” She swaps the third cup for the one that Kathy’s holding.

“What’s the difference?” Louisa opens the drinking cap and takes a sniff.

“Coffee, milk, two sugars.” Suze points at Louisa’s cup. “Coffee, milk, no sugar.” That’s Kathy’s. “And a tea.” She salutes them with her own mug.

“You’re a lifesaver.” Kathy takes a grateful sip. She hadn’t had time to hit the kitchen this morning.

“Not me.” Suze shakes her head. “I was just panicking that I wasn’t going to have time for a cuppa, and Emily found these for us. Also,” she points at the tote bag with her foot, “croissants.”

“Ready, girls?” Bex unfurls her umbrella as the driver comes out of the house and runs back to the car. “Time to go!”

 

**

Bex got the short straw this morning. Sammy gets to travel in the second car with Raf’s camera team. Raf needs to get some exterior shots of the car that the girls are travelling in, but Sammy might as well take a nap.

Bex is in the minivan with the girls and Hakim’s camera unit. Hakim will be filming the girls constantly in case they say anything interesting, and Bex has to keep steering the conversation away from brand names and unbroadcastable subjects and hope that they come through with the gossip.

It doesn’t help that all of them just want to sleep. The girls are all clutching travel mugs, apparently courtesy of Emily who doesn’t seem to have grasped that this is a competition. Nobody seems to have a bad word to say about Emily, possibly with the exception of Jessica who’s unfortunately too smart to be led into badmouthing somebody too directly, and so she makes a pretty boring topic of conversation.

Actually, she’s a pretty boring conversationalist too. According to Cam, the girls in the car yesterday talked about absolutely nothing for the whole time

“How are you all coping without your phones?” Come on girls, give me something.

“Oh, god. It’s like losing a limb!” Louisa laughs. “I keep going to check it and forgetting that it’s not there, getting these little flashes of panic that I’ve lost it…”

“It’s weird not being able to look things up or share photos when we’re talking.” Suze agrees. Bex is secretly glad that they don’t have their phones because Suze talks about her dogs a  _ lot. _

“Mostly I miss my alarm? Like, I’m so used to having my phone as my clock and my alarm and everything that it’s weird having to use a real alarm clock.” Kathy’s one of the sensible ones. She doesn’t create many scenes herself but she does do a great eye-roll when she doesn’t realise she’s being filmed.

“Cassie couldn’t figure out how to turn hers off on her date day.” Suze chips in. “She’d never used it before and she managed to snooze it instead of turning it off, and she was up so early to get ready… Nightmare.”

Louisa shifts her hips so she can get her hand in her pocket. “Actually, going off what Kathy just said about your clock normally being on your phone…” She takes her hand out to reveal a travel alarm clock. “I must have picked it up to look at the time before I left the bedroom, and just automatically put it in my pocket…”

Jesus, why won’t anybody say something  _ interesting? _

 

**

The building looks like any other warehouse when the car pulls onto the industrial park.

“This look… glamorous.” Kathy’s looking dubious. “What do you reckon it is?”

“I have no idea.” Lou glances at Bex. “Are we getting out?”

“Yeah, hang on a sec.” It’s not clear what’s wrong with Bex today, but she’s been a bit…. Not grumpy, exactly, she’s been pretty chatty, but Lou’s getting the impression that she really doesn’t want to be here. “Just let me get the brolly up.”

The other car got here first, so they could film the girls arriving, and Sammy is already approaching with the other umbrella.

“Come on then.” Bex opens the door and climbs out, umbrella at the ready.

 

Inside, the building is laid out like a racetrack, walls of tyres creating the lanes. The whole place smells of petrol.

Lou’s only just had time to take it in when there’s a rattle of engine and one go kart flies in around the course, coming to a smooth stop in front of them.

Thomas kills the engine, steps out and takes off his helmet, and Lou smiles back at him because he’s so obviously enjoying himself.

“Hi! How are you all today?”

They all answer at once, general confirmation that they’re just great, thanks, and then Thomas carries on with a slightly-rehearsed spiel on what they’re doing today which boils down to: racing go karts.

They get a set of overalls each, which explains the instruction to wear trousers, and they get ten minutes to change.

 

“How the heck am I going to get my hair into a helmet?” Suze yanks her overalls over her hips and struggles with the sleeves.

“Plait it?” Lou has a second attempt at getting the velcro strip on the front of her overalls to line up properly. Maybe the push-up bra wasn’t a great choice today.

“Um, yeah, I guess…” Suze runs her fingers through her hair.

“Come here.” Kathy crosses the changing room. “Hold still.” 

Lou parts her own hair into two low ponytails. It looks okay, it’ll fit under the helmet, and her hair should still be manageable afterwards. 

“Thank you.” Suze is watching in the spotty mirror as Kathy does some kind of magic and tames Suze’s hair back into a french plait. “I can’t french plait on somebody else, let alone on myself.”

“It’s easy if you practice.” Kathy’s hands are a blur as she gets towards the end of Suze’s hair. “I’m just assuming you have hair elastics? It’s not like I need them...”

Lou smirks as Suze tries to look around for her bag while Kathy’s still got hold of her hair. “Here.” She drops one into Kathy’s outstretched hand.

“Ta.” Kathy finishes the end of the plait, and they’re ready to go just as Sammy comes looking for them.

 

It’s pretty cool, once they get started. There’s a guy there to talk them through how the karts work, and then they’re set loose to drive a couple of laps and get the hang of things. Thomas is driving around with them, far more confident, and Lou makes an effort to keep up with him.

“You’ve done this before!” she calls, when they come to a stop to wait for the others and get ready for an actual race.

“I haven’t” Thomas laughs. “They just got me here really early so I could practice!”

He’s so genuine that Lou can’t help but laugh along with him.

 

“Okay, ladies!” They’re all out of their karts, now, sitting in a row next to the track so that Thomas can explain what’s going to happen next. “We’re doing timed laps, first, and then we’re going to have a race. There is a prize, by the way.”

As if they weren’t competitive already.

Kathy’s driving the first timed lap. Lou and Suze sit either side of Thomas and watch as she takes each of the corners with the kind of precision she shows in everything else she does, turning in a time of one minute and twenty three seconds.

“Is that good?” Suze turns to Thomas for an answer.

“I think the track’s best time is about forty seconds? But that’s somebody who’s a regular member and does this a lot.”

 

Lou’s up next. She’s still not that confident in her go kart, but she’s determined to beat Kathy.

The track bears gently to the right after she crosses the start line, then there’s a sharp 180 bend to the left, a straight section, a slightly less tight 180 bend to the right, two 90 degree right turn corners and then the track has a long straight section which goes back past the start. Then there’s another two right turns, the second of which slopes at a weird angle, two left turns in quick succession, then two more right turns before the track bends to the left and takes her back to the checkered line. 

It feels like it takes forever to drive it, and like it’s over in an instant. Some of the corners were a bit hairy, but she kept control and overall it feels pretty good.

It certainly feels like it takes longer for her time to come through than it did to drive it, as she tucks her helmet under her arm and walks back to the others.

One minute twenty five. Damn.

 

Having seen Suze’s practice laps, they’re all looking forward to watching her race the clock.

Suze grins and waves as she pulls her helmet on and gets into the go kart.

She pulls away with a squeal of tyres and throws herself into the first corner with an enthusiasm that nearly puts her right into the wall. The second corner’s not much more controlled, and Kathy’s flinching in Lou’s peripheral vision when Suze rockets into the straight section.

Suze heads into the part with lots of bends within a short distance, and Lou gives into the urge to cover her eyes. “I don’t think I can watch.” 

“She’s okay.” Thomas puts his arm around Lou’s shoulders, so that’s a win. “Look.”

Suze flies over the finish line and is almost at the first corner again before she stops the kart.

“That’s got to be a good time, right?” Kathy doesn’t sound too happy about it.

“I don’t know.” Thomas gives it some thought. “She could have lost a bit correcting for all those corners.”

Suze comes bounding back over to them. “How did I do?”

“I think I aged six years just watching.” Lou forgets to think before she speaks, but luckily Suze just laughs like it was a joke.

“I’m never going to get points for style, so I thought, why not just go for it?”

Her time’s coming up on the board, the digital numbers flashing before they settle.

1:28.

Kathy actually fist-pumps and Suze laughs again. “Never mind, girls, I’ll get you in the race.”

Oh god, Lou’s got to share the track with her.

 

Thomas is racing, too, so there are four of them arranged on the starting grid. The lap times have been used to decide their starting positions, so at least Suze is behind Lou and she doesn’t have to try to get round her.

Then again, maybe it would be better to have Suze in front of her where she can see her.

Thomas didn’t do a timed lap, so he’s starting in fourth. Lou can see their karts out of the corner of her eye, but most of her focus is on Kathy in front, and on the starter’s flag.

 

They’re all together approaching the first bend, but the tight angle of the turn and their relative inexperience slows them down and spreads them out a little. Even Suze seems to be taking it easier with the other karts around her, although Lou doesn’t have a lot of attention to spare for her. Just ahead, Kathy takes the second sharp bend and Lou focuses on keeping control as she follows. Keep the speed up, but not so fast that you can’t control your angle on the bends, keep to the middle of the track so that the people behind can’t push past. 

She’s right behind Kathy on the third bend, and Kathy speeds up into the fourth which is perfect because that weakens her angle, sends her a little wider and gives Lou room to squeeze past as they get into the straight section.

Lou sticks to the middle of the track, aware of Kathy just behind her, and drives.

Kathy’s right on her tail at the next bend, and then it’s the one with the weird slope to it. Lou can feel that she doesn’t have as much control as she’d like, much lower down on the track than she had been on her timed lap, but as she pulls out of the bend Kathy’s not as close as she was.

Lou grins. She can win this.

She takes the two left-hand turns smoothly, and then she can feel somebody close behind her. Three more corners, that’s all she has to hold on for.

Two corners to go, but Kathy shoves past, forcing Lou to wrestle the kart in the direction she wants to go, and she’s back in second - and that’s not Kathy. The wild abandon with which the kart in front of her sails around the last-but one bend can only mean that that’s Suze at the wheel.

Lou accelerates.

 

**

The girls are all mic'd, of course. Bex has been listening in on Raf’s spare headphones. Kathy’s feed is completely unusable, because that girl swears like a sailor when she’s racing, but Suze’s excited whooping as she rockets over the finish line in first position is absolute gold. If that doesn’t make the final cut for the show then Bex might as well give up any hope of ever getting an editor’s job on the grounds that she doesn’t know nearly as much about making a TV show as she thought she did. 

 

**

The prize, it turns out, is the opportunity to travel with Thomas to the location of the next part of the date.

Suze is still hyped from the win, even after they’ve shed their overalls and fixed their hair (actually, Kathy’s magic french plait survived the helmet so well that Suze is keeping it in) and Thomas laughs when she bounces over to him.

“Ready to go?”

“Absolutely!”

Her bag is going in the minivan with the other girls and the production team, but Suze gets to walk out to the Range Rover that Thomas is driving.

“Nice. Is this actually yours?”

Thomas ignores the cameras as he buckles his seatbelt. “Sadly not. It’s on loan.”

“Nice work if you can get it!” Suze does up her own seatbelt, and tries to focus on having some time to get to know Thomas a little better and ignore the camera crew in the back seat. “So, where are we going?”

“I’m not supposed to tell you that.” Thomas puts the car in gear and pulls smoothly away. “But it’s going to take us about thirty minutes to get there, so we’ve got time for a proper chat.” He looks over at her and grins, and then turns his attention straight back to the road.

Suze’s stomach flutters. It’s been mad, so far, this competition, and she’s been swept up with getting to know the girls, and the amount of time they all spend making themselves look camera-ready. Even today, she was distracted by how much fun the go karting was that she almost forgot, somehow, that the whole point of this is Thomas.

And Thomas is hot, right, and it’s just the two of them (and a camera crew) in this fancy car, and when he smiles at her his eyes crinkle, and…

It’s like she’d forgotten that she does actually fancy him.

She makes a few guesses about where they might be going, but Thomas doesn’t rise to the bait.

“I still can’t believe I won that race.”

“Had you been go karting before?”

“I’ve never driven a car before.”

Thomas turns to her in surprise and then forcibly snaps his attention back to the traffic. “What?!”

“First time for everything!”

“That’s insane! How did you manage to-”

Suze can’t stop herself from laughing.

“You’re winding me up.”

“Sorry!” She’s not sorry. “I couldn’t help it. Actually, my grandpa was a groundskeeper on a big estate up in Yorkshire. I spent most of my summer holidays on a quad bike when I was growing up.”

“That… makes more sense.” Thomas nods. “You weren’t scared of anything out there, and you do kind of drive like you’re used to rough terrain.”

“Yup. Hey, can I have a go driving this?”

She’s joking, again, but Thomas’ production handler (Steve, is that his name?) and the camera guy both yelp  _ no! _ before Thomas gets a chance to respond, and Suze gets another fit of the giggles.

 

**

The final part of today’s date is a games arcade, full of classic machines, bright lights and sound effects.

It’s a bit of a maze, which is perfect for taking each of the girls off on their own for a bit.

Suze is just as much fun in the arcade as she was in the car, getting utterly destroyed at  _ Space Invaders _ and not minding at all. Thomas leans around her to help, although when he’s pressed up against her back with his arms around her, neither of them are as focused as they really need to be to get anywhere near the existing high scores. When the  _ game over _ message flashes up on screen, Suze leans back against him and turns her head to look up at him. 

“I guess I’m just not a natural at this…”

Thomas doesn’t care if she’s good at  _ Space Invaders _ or not. He cares that she’s funny, and cute, and right here in front of him. Suze must be able to read the moment, because her eyes flicker down to his mouth and back and then she turns to face him, stretching up on her toes in the same movement so that it’s the easiest thing in the world to lean down a little and kiss her.

 

Louisa likes winning. More to the point, it’s pretty clear that Louisa does not like losing. She’d had to hunt for a smile after coming second in the race, and now she’s visibly tensing as Ms Pac-Man fails to evade a ghost. Thomas can’t help thinking that although this might not be the best date to take Louisa on, it’s… enlightening.

The idea of “helping” Louisa to play the game clearly wouldn’t go down well, and it probably won’t be that successful if Thomas takes a turn and does better than she did.

“Shall we find the others?”

 

Kathy doesn’t seem that interested in the games, strolling hand-in-hand through the winding alleys of machines, until she spots a claw game.

“Oh, I used to be so good at these.” She’s already feeding some of their tokens into the slot. “Every Saturday afternoon.”

“Mis-spent youth?”

“Not exactly.” Kathy does at least acknowledge that he was joking, so he hasn’t caused offence. “My mum worked at the cinema, and I used to go down with her when I wasn’t old enough to stay home on my own for her whole shift. They couldn’t always let me in to see a film, depended what was on, so I spent a lot of time playing with one of these.” She pats the machine absently, sliding her hands onto the controls as her time starts. “Got the hang of it after a while. Other kids used to let me take their go as they knew I’d get the toy for them.” The claw judders into life and Kathy guides it down to a cuddly fish. “It’s not a party trick I get to roll out very often…”

The fish drops neatly into the prize chute and Kathy grins. “Still got it, though!”

 

**

Howard smiles at the cameras. “Thomas has a difficult decision to make now - he’s spent time with three of our girls today, but only two of them can go through to the next round. In just a few minutes the phone lines will be open so that you can call in to save the girl you want to see go straight through to the next round. The girl with the most votes from each date will go through, and then Thomas will have to choose between the two remaining girls - who is he going to Ditch, and who is he going to Date?”

“The numbers are on your screen now for each of the girls. Calls cost 64 pence per minute, please don’t call before the lines are open as your vote won’t count and you may still be charged. Please ask the bill payer’s permission before calling.”

The camera cuts back to Howard, and he flashes his smile again. “Lines are open… now. We’ll see you next time, on  _ Ditch or Date.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Viewer voting has now closed for this round
> 
> Thanks to penguinsandyetmorepenguins for sense-checking the bits of this chapter I wasn't sure of.


	8. Episode Six - Results

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back to _Ditch or Date_. In tonight’s episode, we’ll reveal the results from the viewer votes, and Thomas has some tough decisions to make.

Sarah’s not totally sure how she got landed with this. She’d gone for one drink after picking the final twenty-four for _Ditch or Date,_ and then either Ben or James started showing up by her desk on Friday afternoons to tell her she was coming to the pub with them after work. Once she’d been out with them a few times, she started getting notifications on the instant messenger system instead of a personal visit, and now it’s just part of the routine to go out for two drinks and a curry with the boys and some of the script writers from _River Road_ every Friday.

That still doesn’t really explain why she had to vacuum her flat the day before _Ditch or Date_ aired.

...to be fair, she probably didn’t need to vacuum because the guys aren’t that observant, but this was the first time she’d had people over since Michael left.

James is living with his parents at the moment, saving up for the deposit on a house, Ben lives in a grim-sounding house share with a bunch of guys he’s known for years, and Freya’s boyfriend can’t stand reality television, so when they’d decided that they should have a _Ditch or Date_ viewing party they’d decided to have it at Sarah’s place. Sarah wasn’t really consulted on the decision, but she saw no reason not to go along with it until she was standing in the kitchen, wondering whether she should have bought more Doritos, and the doorbell buzzed.

 

It was a lot more fun than she’d expected, somehow. They’d brought alcohol, as promised, and Dan from the _River Road_ team had turned up with homemade cupcakes.

“What?” Dan had somehow been able to see the look on Ben’s face even though he had his back to him as he transferred the cakes from the tupperware to a plate. “I like baking.”

 

They’d only talked about getting together to watch the first episode, the party episode. Ben didn’t seem to notice that there was a contestant on the shortlist that they hadn’t picked. James had looked a little puzzled, but when Ben and Sarah didn’t react he settled down again.

It’s probably a good thing that Katy’s on maternity leave and Katie seems to consider herself above socialising with her colleagues.

Maybe that’s not fair. Planning a wedding takes up loads of time.

Anyway, they’d only talked about watching the first episode, but after Sarah spends all of episodes two and three replying to texts in a group chat that’s apparently been set up specially, it seems natural to type out **are we getting together for the first results episode?** and hit _send._

She has an immediate wave of panic, and has to remind herself that they all chose to come over to her place for the first episode, that they’d suggested getting together, and it was fun, and of course they won’t think she’s pushing herself in.

James is the first to text back, fast enough that she hasn’t had time to work up to the level of panic where she tries to recall the message.

**Sounds good! Are you offering to host again?**

Freya adds a thumbs-up immediately after James’ message.

Sarah doesn’t really need to think about it. Most of the others couldn’t host it anyway.

**Let me check with Horatio…**

**Lol** comes straight back from James. **H loves us.**

That’s true. James in particular was covered in cat hair when he left.

“What do you reckon, Horatio?”

Horatio opens one eye from where he’s sprawled on his back over two-thirds of the sofa, the picture of elegance. Sarah snaps a photo on her phone and adds it to the chat.

**H says okay so long as he doesn’t have to move**

  
  
  


“Hey, so, since none of us voted, I’ve got an idea.” Ben appears in the kitchen doorway, an open beer bottle in each hand. He’s made himself at home in Sarah’s flat very quickly.

There’s a pause, and Sarah suspects that she’s not the only one who broke the rules by voting in each episode, since they’re not technically supposed to do anything to influence the vote as they work for the production company.

“Go on.” James holds out a hand for one of the beers. He can’t get up from the sofa to get his own because Horatio has already taken up residence on his lap.

Sarah’s not jealous that her cat has abandoned her.

“We should all write down who we’d want to save from each episode, and who we think Thomas is going to save, and see who’s right.” Ben hands over the beer and bags the armchair. “Nobody here actually knows, right? James?”

James is the most likely to know, as he works closest to the show, but he shakes his head. “It’s all been kept really quiet. And anyway, only the viewer vote bit is confirmed, Thomas actually hasn’t chosen yet.” He looks at his watch. “Well. He probably has by now, because it’s not actually live, but only within the last hour or so.”

“Huh.” Freya’s folded herself into the corner of the sofa. “I keep thinking the whole thing was filmed weeks ago, like _River Road,_  I forget that this is actually happening now. Sarah, come and sit down before Dan gets back.”

Dan’s still in the kitchen. It seems rude as the host to take the middle seat on the sofa, the only remaining seat, and leave Dan on the floor.

“Sarah.” James pats the sofa cushion with his free hand. “Sit.”

Sarah sits.

“Won’t we need some paper for Ben’s voting game thing?”

 

Freya and Dan both cheer when Howard appears on screen. It still seems surreal to Sarah that they actually _know_ him. She’s stuck at her desk all day and it’s not that common for the stars of their best shows to come into the office, but of course Freya and Dan have worked with him on last minute script adjustments. Sometimes they actually go out to the _River Road_ set and everything.

It’s still funny that they switch between calling him _Howard_ and calling him _Eddie_ without even seeming to notice. It took a bit of getting used to, but now she just catches Ben’s or James’ eye and shares a smirk whenever they forget that the actor isn’t actually the character.

There’s a recap of the dates, and then Howard is in a room at the house with all the girls gathered on the pristine white couches in front of him.

“You can tell nobody in that house has a cat.” Sarah doesn’t even want to _think_ about what Horatio would do to furniture like that.

James looks over at her and grins. He’s been gently running his hand along Horatio’s back, and there’s a little pile of fur on his jeans.

“Ladies.” Everybody leans forwards a fraction, on the TV and in the room. “The viewer votes are in, and the results are here.” He’s got a card in his hand. The background music adds to the tension, and Sarah wonders suddenly if they play it in the house too.

“From date one, the viewers have protected….”

The camera pans from Roxie to Josie to Cassie and back.

“...Cassie.”

Cassie smiles, looking genuinely surprised. “Really?”

Josie and Roxie both look tense. Sarah’s still not sure which of them is which.

“From date two, the viewers have voted to protect…”

“Anyone but Jessica.” Dan contributes from his nest of cushions on the floor in front of Freya.

“Why?” Ben looks genuinely interested. “She’s hot.”

“She’s a bitch!”

Sarah agrees.

“...Hannah.”

“Woo!” Dan raises both arms, and Horatio turns to see what the fuss is about.

The camera catches Jessica’s expression before she manages to smooth it away.

“From date three, the viewers have voted to protect…”

“Come on, Emily.” Freya sits up a bit straighter. “Do it for the normal people, come on!”

“It’s weird, but I really don’t remember putting her in.” Ben doesn’t take his eyes off the television. Sarah stares at the screen, aware out of the corner of her eye that James is looking at her.

“Me neither.” James shifts Horatio further onto his lap. “Sarah?”

“It was ages ago…”

“...Emily.”

“Yes! Get in!” Freya fist-pumps, and they all laugh.

On screen, various of the girls are caught in expressions of shock as Cassie pulls Emily into a celebratory hug.

“And from date four, the viewer vote has saved…”

“I can’t call this one.” James lifts his hands as Horatio decides that it’s time for a change of scene and stands up. “I honestly can’t guess between these three.”

“...Kathy.”

Kathy grins. Louisa doesn’t look impressed. Suze just looks happy for Kathy.

“When did they film this?” Freya leans past Sarah to poke James.

“Uh… Wednesday, I think?”

“So, ladies.” Howard draws everybody’s attention, on and off screen. “Cassie, Hannah, Emily and Kathy-with-a-K, you’re safely through to the next round. The rest of you will be going for coffee with Thomas, in pairs with the girl who was on your main date, and then Thomas is going to decide who gets Ditched.”

“It sounds so hard, like that.” Dan moves his crisps away from Horatio’s investigations.

“Like on _The Apprentice,_  only it’s _You’re Ditched_ instead of _You’re Fired._ ” Freya doesn’t sound like she’s sympathetic.

“Still harsh, though.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not like Gareth’s known for his cuddly nature.”

Sarah snorts a laugh into her wine glass. On screen, the show cuts to Howard addressing the camera

“Join us after the break to see how the girls got on on their coffee dates.”

 

It feels like forever since their day at the zoo. Thomas is looking forward to seeing the girls again, although it adds a bit of stress to know that this is decision time. He’s got to make a choice after this, and one of them will have to go home. He’s got about forty minutes to drink a cup of coffee and make up his mind, and then the next time he sees them will be when he sends one of them away.

They’ve hired out one room of a local independent cafe, and there are three comfortable chairs grouped around the table. Thomas gets to sit there and be filmed looking a bit nervous, while somebody else films the girls walking down the street towards the cafe.

He’d forgotten how alike they look, when he stands up to greet them with hugs and cheek kisses.

The barista comes over while they’re settling into their seats, one of those parts that’s being filmed but almost certainly won’t be shown because it’s just awkward, with the coffees that they’d pre-ordered.

Everybody’s got a latte.

 

Thomas doesn’t have time, really, to try to get to know them any further. It’s small talk, catching up on what’s been happening since he last saw them - without talking about the nine other girls he’s dated since - and just taking stock of his gut feelings.

They’re both really attractive women. Josie’s the more composed of the two, he’s not sure how much of what he sees is what she’s decided she wants him to see. Roxie’s more open, but she’s also that little younger, that little bit less mature.

This isn’t easy.

 

The table is cleared and wiped down between dates. Thomas drank most of his latte, and they’ll bring him a fresh one even though there’s nothing wrong with the first one, so it doesn’t look like he’s already been here for a while.

Even though they all know that he has been.

Amanda also has a latte. Jessica gets a flat white.

These groupings can be awkward, knowing that the girls are vying for his attention, but this one in particular is…

He’s got Jessica to his left and Amanda to his right, and they’re both flirting with him. There’s also a weird vibe, like they’re only too aware that they’re competing with each other for him.

Maybe some guys would like being fought over by two beautiful girls. Thomas can’t say he _hates_ it, exactly, but there’s definitely a sense that at least one of these girls is flirting with him more to get one over on her competitor than because she actually wants to date him.

He had a great time with both of them on the rock climbing date, but this coffee date is really helping him to know which of them he’d like to see again.

Perhaps it’s more effective than he’d thought.

 

Thomas gets a bathroom break, and switches to tea for his third date of the afternoon. It comes in a pot, so he doesn’t have to pour too much, thank god.

Cathy’s ordered an americano, which she stirs sugar into and then doesn’t really drink. Mary-Ann gets a peppermint tea, which smells really nice. Maybe he’ll have one of those next.

This is the tough one. He’d had fun with both of them on their main date, for different reasons. Cathy feels comfortable already, like a friend, but there isn’t the same spark of attraction that he’s felt with some of the other girls. Mary-Ann has that spark, she’s definitely attractive, but there’s also something about her that he finds kind of intimidating. All through their one-on-one time previously he’d felt like he needed to keep up with her, rather than being comfortable next to Cathy, but…

Should he pick Cathy, and see if a spark grows? Or should he pick Mary-Ann, and see if they’ve got more in common once he gets to know her better?

 

He wanders around the cafe before the last date, needing to stretch his legs. They’ve got a selection of herbal teas, when he goes to investigate whether Mary-Ann’s peppermint is the only option, and after a chat with the barista he ends up with a salted caramel flavoured green tea.

It’s a bit weird. Maybe it’ll grow on him.

 

This last date is hard, because he’s pretty much made his mind up before the girls even get here. It’s not fair on anybody to show that, though, and he’s always aware in the back of his mind that this is a TV show. It’s about real people with real feelings, but Stephen’s reminded him a couple of times that when he can, Thomas should allow the viewers to get their drama.

It’s one thing to joke that your love life is a soap opera, it’s another thing entirely to have your love life presented and narrated by Eddie off of _River Road._

Louisa and Suze both get lattes, although Suze is fascinated by his tea and ends up stealing a taste when he offers.

“That’s… weird.” She frowns as she sets the cup back down. “But not bad-weird. Maybe it’ll grow on me.”

 

“Right then.” Ben picks up the notepad and pen from the coffee table and flips to a clean page. “Since we weren’t so good at predicting viewer votes, let’s see if we can do any better with Thomas’ choice. Starting at the top: Roxie and Josie. James, what do you think?”

James frowns. “Josie, I think. Roxie’s a bit young.”

“Aw, I was going to say Roxie _because_ she’s younger.” Ben puts a tally mark under each name. “Sarah?”

“Uhh… Josie.”

“Freya?”

“Josie.”

“Dan?”

“Yeah, Josie.”

“Well, that’s 4-1 to Josie in the room.” Ben writes out the next names. “Amanda and Jessica.”

“Got to be Amanda.” Dan jumps straight in. “I can’t stand Jessica!”

“But can Thomas?” Freya stretches her legs out and kicks Dan gently in the back of the head. It looks like an accident but Sarah suspects it might not be. “I mean, Amanda spent most of their other date flirting with her climbing instructor.”

“He was cute, though…” Sarah suspects that they hadn’t planned to show nearly as much footage of the instructor as they did, but with Amanda flirting so much it was too good an angle not to broadcast.

Freya demands a fist bump.

“So, Sarah? Amanda or Jessica?”

“Ugh. I don’t know. Amanda.”

“I think Jessica.” James jumps in before Ben can ask.

“I reckon Amanda…” Ben marks their votes. “So that’s 3-2 to Amanda. Cathy or Mary-Ann?”

“Cathy.” Sarah gets in first. Cathy’s more down to earth, and she’s got a feeling that she’d find Mary-Ann intimidating if they were ever in the same room.

“Yeah, Cathy.” James focuses on the futile task of trying to get the cat hair off his jeans.

“I think Mary-Ann. It didn’t look like Thomas fancied Cathy at all.”

“I agree with Dan.” Freya unfolds herself from the couch, wine glass in hand. “Anybody else want a refill?”

“So… two each for Mary-Ann and Cathy, because I really don’t know on that one.” Ben notes it down.

“Cop out!” Freya takes Sarah’s wine glass. “You boys want more beer?”

James and Dan are both driving. Ben will have a beer, thanks.

“And finally,” Ben continues, “Louisa and Suze.”

“Suze.” Dan, James and Sarah all speak at once.

“I’m surprised she didn’t win the viewer vote.” Dan watches Horatio warily as Horatio debates stepping into Dan’s lap. “Careful where you’re putting those paws, mate.”

Sarah leans forward and scoops Horatio off the floor. “People haven’t come here just to be sat on, H.”

“I did.” James pats his knee, and Horatio steps across with a withering look at Sarah.

“Frey? Vote?”

“Suze.” Freya comes back with the wine glasses and beer bottle balanced precariously. “Obviously.”

“Yeah.” Ben notes it down. “That’s unanimous, Thomas had better pick her now.”

 

“Welcome back to _Ditch or Date._ Coming up, it’s decision time for Thomas as he picks one girl to date and one to ditch from each of his dates so far.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re reading this before the next chapter is posted, please pitch in with your opinions on who Thomas should pick and why!


	9. Episode Six - Results (part 2)

“Welcome back to  _ Ditch or Date.  _ Coming up, it’s decision time for Thomas as he picks one girl to date and one to ditch from each of his dates so far.”

 

They haven’t used this part of the property so far. It’s not entirely clear what this space was intended for, some kind of outbuilding that was originally a stable or something, adapted to be a games room, maybe, only they haven’t got round to furnishing it yet.

It’s lined with those wicker outdoor couches, but they’ve been brought in by the tv company and anyway most people don’t feel like sitting down.

Cassie and Emily are sitting on one couch with Kathy, less tense than the girls who haven’t had their places in the competition secured by the viewer vote. Hannah’s milling around with the others, mostly talking to Suze, and clutching her wine glass like a security blanket that she really doesn’t need.

Josie’s nervous, although she’s doing her best not to show it to the cameras.

Shit, maybe she should be showing it to the cameras? Do the viewers need to know that she wants their support next round?

If she gets through this round.

She’s going to get through this round.

She glances over at where Roxie is laughing with Hannah and Suze. Roxie doesn’t look nervous, and Roxie’s her competition tonight.

Josie takes a few steadying breaths. A moment of vulnerability might be just the thing right now. 

There’s a curtain over the doorway at the end of the room, leading to a smaller room where they’ve set up the camera booth for any one-on-one things they might want to say. Maybe that would-

Jessica’s just disappearing behind the curtain. Maybe later.

 

The curtain’s a heavy fabric, and the sound of the party mutes significantly when it swings closed behind Jess. She smiles at Hakim, who’s stuck in here to film them one-on-one instead of mingling around the party like Raf.

Hakim doesn’t seem to mind, and Sammy’s there to lead them with questions if they don’t know what they want to say.

“Hi Jessica.”

“Hi.” Jess slides onto the polished wooden seat, which is more comfortable than it looks.

“How are you doing?”

“I’m… okay, I think?” They’ve been told again and again, talk to the camera when you go in for a private chat. Sammy’s sitting directly behind the camera to help with sightlines in case they automatically start looking at the person who’s asking questions. “A bit… well, I’m not sure that nervous is quite the right word. I mean, I’m pretty confident in the connection that Thomas and I have made, but there are eight of us and only four places, so…” She gives a little shrug and smiles into the camera. “I’m sure Thomas knows what he’s doing.”

 

“God I hope he doesn’t pick her. She’s so fake.” Freya rolls her shoulders as if Jessica’s appearance on-screen makes her physically uncomfortable.

“How much of that is editing, though? I mean, we all know how much editing goes into these things to show people in a certain way.” James more than any of them, as he’s the only one who actually works in editing.

“There’s got to be something there, though, right? No smoke without a fire.”

“But if you play with fire, you’ll get burned.” Dan leans back to look up at Freya like he’s imparting great wisdom.

“Ah, but what matters most is how you walk through the fire.”

“Give a man a fire and he's warm for the day. But set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.”

Freya and Dan both dissolve into laughter at some joke that the rest of them aren’t in on. Sarah catches Ben’s eye, and he shrugs. Writers. 

 

Thomas is aware that he’s pacing, but it’s hard to stop. In less than fifteen minutes he has to walk up to the main house and send four girls home.

He’s only confident about two of those girls, but he’s out of time, the decision has to be made.

“Knock knock.” Stephen leans in through the open door. “You ready to go?”

“No?”

Stephen laughs. “Yeah, tough, sorry about that.” He comes into the room, obviously prepared to herd Thomas out. “But you know what you have to do, right? I mean the logistics, if not the names.”

“Mmm.” Thomas wheels back to the mirror to check his hair, which hasn’t changed in the minutes and a half since he last checked it. It’s a nervous habit. “Party. Mingle. Talk to a range of girls. Then Howard will come in and tell me there’s a taxi waiting, and I have to send one of the girls home in it. Rinse, repeat.” It seems so cruel to just pick them out of the party one by one, but then, this kind of show isn’t known for kindness.

“Good.” Stephen takes his elbow and physically steers him out of the room. “Do you know who you’re sending home?”

Thomas shrugs, freeing his elbow in the process. “Kind of?”

His panic and confusion must be bleeding through. Stephen claps him on the shoulder. “It’ll all be fine.”

 

There’s a courtyard outside the room where the girls are mingling, and Thomas has to stop and film with Howard, a broadcast-friendly version of his conversation with Stephen.

“I’m not going to ask you for names,” Howard says, as if they’re just two guys chatting and this isn’t on camera for the nation. “But do you know who you’re going to send home?”

“Not entirely.” Thomas pulls a face which he hopes is wry and not an unattractive grimace. “I’m looking forward to chatting with the girls a bit this evening and I’m hoping that things will be clearer as the evening unfolds.”

“Well.” Howard pulls an envelope out of the inside pocket of his sports jacket. “I don’t know if this is going to help or hinder in your decision, but there is something we haven’t told you.” He passes the envelope over. 

Behind the camera, Stephen mimes opening the envelope and zips his lips, so Thomas guesses he’s supposed to open it and read it but not out loud.

It’s not stuck down, the flap just folded in to make it easy to open, and he’s got no idea what to expect when he slides the piece of card out of the envelope and reads it.

And reads it again, just to make sure.

“Really?”

The camera catches his expression perfectly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is technically only half a chapter, but I couldn’t let a cliffhanger go to waste...


	10. Episode Six (part 3)

Thomas is here.

Thomas is here, Thomas is here, Thomas is here.

 

Jessica latched right on to him, of course, but Thomas is actually pretty good about circulating and making sure that he speaks to everybody.

It’s really not necessary for him to spend so much time talking to Cassie, though. Cassie’s position is set for this round, he doesn’t need to make any decisions about Cassie tonight.

Lou swaps her empty wine glass for a fresh one. They’re using really big glasses, but only half-filling them.

Watching Cathy gesture with the hand that’s holding her glass, Lou can see why.

This is… tough. Lou’s pretty sure she got on okay with Thomas, but it’s hard to tell when she doesn’t know what happened in his one-on-one time with Suze. To be honest, the viewer vote was a bit of a shock because she’d been expecting it to be Suze or her who went through, not Kathy, and she thought she’d be okay up against Kathy for this part. 

Suze, though… Suze could be tough competition.

 

“Hey, Thomas, can I borrow you for a second?” Mary-Ann’s had Thomas’ attention for all of about five minutes when Louisa interrupts.

“Of course.” Thomas stands up, wine glass in hand. Mary-Ann doesn’t thinks she’s seen him drink from it. He smiles at her. “I’ll see you in a bit, yeah?”

Mary-Ann smiles her agreement as he leads Louisa to another one of the couches.

“Short and sweet?” Kathy drops into Thomas’ vacated seat.

“I wouldn’t say she was either…” Mary-Ann jokes. Louisa isn’t specifically competition for either of them right now, since Kathy’s safe and Mary-Ann’s up against Cathy-with-a-C.

Kathy laughs. “How are you doing?”

“I’m okay.” Mary-Ann’s aware of Raf circling. Thomas’ regular camera guy (...Phil? Pete? Something like that…) is trailing Thomas to catch all of his conversations, and Raf’s getting the girls when they’re away from Thomas

There’s an expectation that Mary-Ann and Kathy will be friends, just because of the colour of their skin. The white girls seem to automatically assume that they’ll want to do things together, even though they don’t actually have that much in common. They’re at completely different stages in life - Mary-Ann’s older, she’s got her own tiny flat and a job that’s actually got the potential to be a career. Kathy’s still studying, and once she’s qualified she’s going to be a nurse which is much more worthwhile than selling paintings and bits of sculpture to people with more money than they know what to do with.

Luckily, despite their differences, Mary-Ann just  _ likes _ Kathy. She’s got a really dry sense of humour that only comes out when she’s comfortable, and she doesn’t have any patience for the girls who are clearly faking half the time.

“Nervous?”

“Little bit, yeah.” There’s no harm in Kathy and the audience knowing how she feels. The rest of the girls… well, she’d rather they think she’s more confident than she is. “I mean, Cathy gets on really well with Thomas.”

“Do you think he fancies her, though?”

Mary-Ann’s been wondering the same, although it seems rude to mention it. “Hard to say. I mean, do you reckon he’s got a type?”

Kathy snorts inelegantly, much to Raf’s obvious delight. “Oh, I don’t know, hard to tell…” She gestures at the room, and Mary-Ann smiles. Four of the girls are impossible to tell apart from the back, and she’s definitely not the only one who struggles.

 

“I actually feel a bit sick.” Roxie keeps forgetting that she’s supposed to talk to the camera rather than to Sammy. “I mean, not like, actually sick, but just a bit…” She waves a hand as she runs out of words.

Sammy quite likes Roxie. To be honest, Sammy likes most of the girls, even Jessica, but Roxie in particular seems to bring out latent older-sibling instincts. She’s got a more stressful and probably more worthwhile job than a lot of the others, sending out ambulances in response to 999 calls. Sammy would rather deal with the cat-herding of dealing with TV show participants than life-or-death situations. Still, there are moments when Roxie’s clearly just a little more out of her depth than any of the others, and Sammy kind of wants to take her aside and tell her that everything’s going to be fine, whether she wins this or not.

That’s not allowed, of course.

 

“It’s going to be weird tomorrow.” Suze is trying to be sensible with the wine. It’s really tempting to just keep going back for another one, keep the nerves at bay, but she has to remember that she might get sent home tonight and she doesn’t want to blart her eyes out on TV.

She’s going to be gutted if she gets sent home, anyway, so if she can keep the ugly crying until there are no cameras, that would be helpful for what’s left of her dignity.

Anyway, maybe she won’t get sent home. Maybe she didn’t make too much of a tit of herself on the dates, and maybe Thomas will want to keep her around, see where things go. (He’s a really good kisser.)

“Weird how?” Amanda’s one of those girls who seems to be able to drink whatever she wants and not feel the effects.

“Well, like, a third of us won’t be here. No matter who stays and who goes, it’s going to be a bit different, isn’t it?”

“I guess. I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“I hadn’t thought about much other than getting past tonight.” Josie’s been looking tense all through the party, although Suze gets the impression that she’s trying to hide it.

“I suppose we-“

And then the door opens, and Howard comes in.

 

Silence ripples out through the room, as all of them stop talking and turn towards him.

“Thomas. Ladies.” Howard looks appropriately solemn. “There’s a taxi waiting.”

 

_ Showtime. _

 

Thomas’ palms are sweating. This is the tough bit, singling out one of the girls to tell her that he just doesn’t think it would work out between them.

He’s been wondering all evening who to pick first - he’s going to save the hardest decision for last, but it is better to start with the girl he thinks is going to be least upset, ease himself in, or with the girl who might react badly, get it over with?

Like ripping off a plaster.

Howard turns to look at him. “Thomas?”

Thomas takes a breath. 

“Louisa.” He leaves a little pause for it to sink in. “Can I walk you out?”

 

The taxi is right there in the courtyard, a typical black London style cab even though they’re a couple of hours drive from London.

Lou’s still kind of shocked, that’s she’s going home, that she’s going home  _ first. _

Cam comes out of the house with the suitcase that Lou had left packed at the foot of her bed, as instructed, and the taxi driver loads it into the cab.

Thomas is saying something about them not being suited, something generic that Lou doesn’t really take in, and then he kisses her on the cheek and opens the door of the car.

 

The camera that’s in each of the taxis for the twenty minutes or so of the journey can only provide footage of Louisa staring blankly out of the window.

 

Back at the party, while Thomas is outside saying goodbye, the realisation sinks in that if Louisa has gone home, Suze is safe.

“It’s the weirdest thing.” Suze confides to Hakim, Sammy and the nation. “Jessica just gave me a hug, and I honestly can’t tell if she’s happy for me of if it’s some sort of tactical move. Cassie, Emily and Hannah, they were genuine, and so was Amanda even though she’s still waiting for her result, but Jessica… I don’t know.”

 

“It’s like the tension in the room has just gone…” Cathy hold her hands out in front of her as if she’s gripping something and yanks it up. “This makes it real, you know? A third of us get cut tonight.”

 

“Ladies. Thomas. There’s a taxi waiting.”

  
  


“Amanda. Can I walk you out?”

 

This is a hundred times easier, as Thomas had anticipated. The time he’s spent with Amanda has been fun, but it’s been light, a surface attraction but no sense that there were any real feelings involved. Thomas isn’t expecting Amanda to cry, or shout, or switch off completely like Louisa seemed to do. She smiles, and hugs him, the runner loads her bags into the cab and off she goes. She waves as the cab pulls away, and his last glimpse is of her settling into her seat and looking at the road ahead.

 

Iain’s thrilled with the footage from Amanda’s taxi. Almost as soon as they’re clear of the gates of the house, she’s digging in her bag for what turns out to be the business card of the rock-climbing centre, which she obligingly holds so the camera can see. Good product placement, that, nice. 

On the back of the card, and not shown clearly to the cameras, is a scrawled note in biro. Amanda hunts through her bag again. 

“When do I get my phone back?”

The taxis are taking them to a hotel, where they have to stay until the episode has aired in order to avoid anybody accidently giving away who’s left in this round, but Iain makes a note to have a camera around when Amanda gets her phone back tomorrow night. Anybody who watched the rock climbing episode will want to see how that phone call goes.

 

“How do you feel, knowing that you’re through to the next round?”

“I feel… great.” Jess smiles widely. “It means a lot, too, to know that it was Thomas’ choice to keep me here, because I know that he really wants me to be here.

“You think it means more to stay from Thomas’ choice than the viewer vote?”

“Well.” Jess needs to be careful how to answer this. “The viewer vote is really important, of course, but at the end of the day it’s about who Thomas chooses, about who he wants to be with. So the vote is very valuable because it gives some of the girls a chance to get to know him a bit better if they get to stay for longer, but I think it does mean a lot to be somebody that Thomas picked.”

“When they realised that Suze was staying, there was some celebration amongst the girls.” Sammy is hard to read, in the shadows behind the camera. “Does it bother you that there wasn’t a similar reaction to Amanda going and you staying?”

Ouch.

Jess smiles again. Game face. “Not really. I mean, I’m not here to make friends. I’m here for Thomas.”

 

Raf’s focussed almost exclusively on the four girls who have yet to have their fates decided. Josie looks pale under her makeup, Roxie’s chattering nervously. Cathy looks calm and relaxed, laughing with Cassie and Emily, but the frequent glances she takes over her shoulder towards where Mary-Ann is sitting with Kathy and Suze suggest that she’s more worried that she lets on.

Thomas has come back from seeing Amanda to her cab, and time seems to stretch forever when they’re waiting for Howard to appear again. Raf gets some shots of Jessica sitting on her own, Hannah picking up yet another glass of wine.

 

“Thomas. Ladies. There’s a taxi waiting.”

 

_ Hoo, boy. _

 

Thomas is hit with a sudden desire to change his mind and put somebody else in that taxi. He doesn’t want to do it, he doesn’t want to upset anybody. Maybe if he-

No.

The last minute change thrown in by Howard helped, really, as soon as he’d understood what it meant he knew exactly what he needed to do.

Don’t change your mind now, you’ll regret it.

 

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

 

“Roxie. Can I walk you out?”

 

She’s not going to cry. She’s not, she’s not.

Roxie dredges up a smile from somewhere, tells Thomas that she understands, and gets into the cab.

They make it out of the end of the driveway and up to the end of the road before she gives Iain one of his favourite shots of the episode when she asks the handler for her phone.

“I want to call my dad…”

One perfect tear escapes and rolls down her cheek, making up in just a second for Amanda’s rapid moving-on and Louisa’s stony indifference.

_ Gold. _

 

Most of the girls descend on Josie to congratulate her, although Jessica’s missing from the group this time, probably insulted that nobody was happy that she was staying. Cathy and Mary-Ann find themselves standing slightly apart from the rest, Raf circling with the ever-present camera.

“Here we go, then.”

Mary-Ann manages a smile in response. “The final reckoning.”

Thomas comes back in and approaches them while the other girls are still chattering around Josie.

“Can I talk to you both a second?”

Cathy’s not sure, but he might look a little more relaxed than he did earlier. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Jessica approaching and one of the runners intercept her.

“Of course.” Mary-Ann answers for both of them, and Thomas leads them out into the courtyard, where there are no taxis currently waiting. They’re trailed by his usual cameraman - Paul, is it?

“So.” He looks happy, but like he’s not quite sure what he’s going to say. “Just before I came into the party, Howard gave me this card.”

Thomas’ trousers are far too well-fitted for him to put things in the pockets -  _ thank you, wardrobe department  _ \- so he takes the card from the guy who does for Thomas what Bex, Sammy and Cam do for the girls.

“Um. I think maybe it’s easier just to let you read it.” He holds it out, and Cathy takes it automatically. Mary-Ann looks over her shoulder as Cathy reads it aloud for the camera.

_ “You can save all the girls from one of your dates.” _

Cathy looks at Thomas, at Mary-Ann and back again. “Really?”

“Yes.” Thomas lets a proper smile spread over his face. “No more taxis tonight. You’re both staying.”

  
  


“Wow.” Freya’s leant right forwards, elbows on her knees, as Howard sweeps in to congratulate Cathy and Mary-Ann and send them back inside to tell the rest of the girls. “I did  _ not _ see that coming.”

“Makes sense, though.” Sarah can feel herself frowning, the way her mother always says will give her wrinkles. “I mean, they need three for each date, and there were only eight of them if he sent one home from each date, so they needed an extra…”

“You knew!” Ben rounds on James suddenly. “You knew about this, didn’t you? You knew there was a wildcard and you didn’t tell us!”

“Ssshh.” James tells him, instead of an answer. “Horatio’s asleep.”


	11. Episode Seven - Date Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Welcome back to Ditch or Date. Coming up tonight-”  
>  _Hannah laughs as she fights her way into a set of decorator’s overalls._  
>  _Close up: Kathy. She is totally absorbed in creating a perfectly smooth finish on a newly-plastered wall._  
>  _Cassie is sitting on Thomas’s shoulders, waving a paint roller and laughing so hard that she’s in danger of falling_  
>  “And at the end of the show, we’ll be opening the phone lines for the public vote.”

 

_Cassie, Hannah, Kathy - let’s see what we can build together_

 

James leans back in his chair to re-watch the introductory sequence. It’s taking some tweaking to line up the voice-over with the images, but he’s pretty happy with the results now.

_The fire started during the night, caused by faulty wiring, and despite the best efforts of the Avon Fire and Rescue Services the building was completely destroyed by morning._

There’s a sequence of photographs of the burnt-out community centre, including a great shot of some charred-but-recognisable children’s toys to tug at the heartstrings.

_Thanks to the tireless fundraising efforts of the local community, the structural rebuild has now been completed. Local volunteers have been given up their free time to finish and decorate the new community centre -_

There’s a shot of the three girls and Thomas, wearing decorators’ overalls and listening to a briefing from the site manager.

_\- and fundraising is continuing to replace the equipment and toys lost in the fire._

 

**

Hannah’s a lot more relaxed with both feet on the floor. She’s made a joke about the tile adhesive ruining her manicure, but Thomas can tell that she’s much happier tiling this bathroom with him than she was walking backwards down a cliff.

It’s easy work, if slightly monotonous, making it easy to talk. Thomas smears adhesive onto a tile, passes it to Hannah, and she presses it carefully onto the wall, slotting the plastic spacers in as they work their way along.

It might be quicker if they each did their own section, but of course half the point is that their fingers keep brushing and their eyes keep meeting.

 

Thomas didn’t get as much chance to talk to Hannah as he did with some of the others. His only real time with her had been on the walk up to the top of their abseil, when she’d clearly been nervous, and then the viewers had put her through to round two so he didn’t even get to have a coffee with her.

Now that they’re finally alone, just the two of them with their film crew and production assistant, Thomas is quickly coming to the conclusion that he’d like to spend more time with her.

He’s kissed four of the girls who are still in the competition, although that’s partly due to some of the dates being less conducive to stealing away from the rest of the group and not only down to which girls he did and didn’t want to kiss.

He’d kissed Hannah at the foot of the cliffs, both of them high on the adrenaline of their abseil, but sitting on the floor on a canvas builder’s sheet he definitely still wants to. Hannah’s got her hair twisted up behind her head, and bits of it are escaping into her face. When she absent-mindedly pushes it out of her way, she leaves a smear of tile adhesive behind and Thomas laughs.

“What?”

“You’ve got…” He’s managed to keep his own hands pretty clean, using the tool that came in the tub to spread the adhesive onto the tiles, so he reaches out without really thinking about it to brush it away.

He hadn’t intended for it to lead anywhere, when he started to move, but when Hannah leans in to his touch it seems like the obvious thing to do to lean in and kiss her.

 

**

“I feel kind of bad.” Thomas admits to Stephen while he’s scrubbing tile adhesive out from under his nails, because heaven forbid he turn up to work with one girl still bearing the evidence of his previous date. “We’re supposed to be helping them get this place finished, and I’m spending more time snogging than I am decorating…”

Stephen rolls his eyes at him. “You know they’re not actually expecting the four of you to achieve anything, right? We’re here to give them the publicity, so that our viewers will contribute to the fundraising. Any tiles you actually stick to the walls in the right places are just a bonus.”

“Oh.” Thomas feels kind of stupid, as he takes the offered towel to dry his hands. That hadn’t even occurred to him.

 

**

Maybe the project managers were just hoping that the presence of _Ditch or Date_ on-site would bring in some funds, rather than help to complete any tasks, but they hadn’t factored in Kathy and Cassie.

Bex is back at the house with the girls today, and Sammy and Cam are out on the date, accompanying the girls who aren’t currently with Thomas. When Hannah and Thomas went off to learn how to tile a wall, the general plan had been for the other two to hang out, have a cup of tea, and wait for their turn to be on camera.

Maybe if they’d brought different girls, that would have happened.

“Right, what are we doing, then?” Cassie had bounced to her feet almost as soon as Hannah had left the area by the catering van. “There’s obviously loads to do, no point in us just sitting around, is there?”

Cam and Sammy had exchanged glances, but Kathy was obviously also happy to be kept occupied, so the morning’s plans had been quickly rearranged and by the time Stephen arrives to let Sammy know that it’s time to swap, Kathy’s had a short course on plastering and is apparently picking it up much faster than any of the professionals anticipated.

Sammy kind of wants to stay and watch how things unfold, to see whether Kathy’s perfectionism keeps her attention on the plastering rather than on Thomas, but Stephen’s handling Thomas and Sammy’s got to go and look after Hannah instead.

 

**

It’s… admirable, that Kathy obviously cares so much about producing the best quality work for the project. It’s clearly about doing the best job that she can just because that’s the sort of person she is, too, she’s not doing it just to impress him.

She’d hardly said much to him at all, actually, outside a couple of tips and techniques for the plastering, her focus entirely on what she was doing. Thomas’ section of the wall is probably being re-skimmed by a professional right now, though, and Kathy’s is pretty much perfect.

Thomas frowns at his reflection and picks bits of plaster out of his hair.

Kathy’s still working. She’d pretended to stop when he did, at the end of their date time, but she’s gone straight back to it as soon as the cameras moved on. There’s a room to finish, after all.

Stephen laughs when he comes to check on him. “Seriously, your hair looks fine.”

“I’ve got bits of plaster everywhere.” Thomas rubs at his ear.

Stephen shakes his head. “You wait until you see the others!”

 

Hannah had apparently joined Cassie, instead of keeping going with the tiling on her own. Both of them are laughing, as they wield paint rollers, and both of them are absolutely covered in little flecks of white paint.

“Hey!” Cassie grins when she spots him, and Hannah turns to see who she’s talking to.

“Guess that’s my cue!” She lays her paint roller down carefully in the tray and wipes her hands on her overalls. “See you in a bit.” She brushes a little closer to Thomas than she really needs to, perhaps, but it’s clear that she’s respecting that this is Cassie’s time.

Thomas likes that.

“So.” He puts his hands on his hips and looks around. The floor is covered in plastic sheeting and scattered with painting equipment, two of the walls are white, two are bare plaster. “What are we doing?”

Cassie laughs.

 

It’s probably the most fun he’s had today. There’s clearly no point in trying to stay clean and tidy, as Cassie obviously gave up on that some time ago, and unlike tiling and plastering he’s painted walls before. Also this is clearly a base coat, so he doesn’t have to worry too much about technique.

“You missed a bit.”

Cassie turns to see where he’s pointing, and then sighs when she realises he’s talking about the strip along the top of the wall, which is out of her reach.

“Very funny! We can’t all be giants, you know.” She’s teasing. “Aren’t you going to be a gentleman and help me out?”

She probably meant that they should swap sides and he should paint the higher bits for her, but Thomas puts his roller down. “Okay.” He crouches down. “Hop on.”

“What?” Cassie’s laughing, now, as she gets what he wants. “Oh, this could go so wrong. Just let me…” She loads the paint roller, and then takes him up on his offer of a piggy-back. “Okay, up!”

It’s not the most efficient way to get things done, probably, but Thomas remembers Stephen’s advice after the tiling session and just concentrates on having fun. Cassie’s still laughing as she clutches his shoulder with one hand and paints with the other. It’s kind of nice to show off, too, Cassie’s one of the smaller girls physically and it’s easy to hold her weight. It’s also cool that she clearly trusts him.

“Hey, if I sat on your shoulders, we could probably have a go at the ceiling…”

 

**

Thomas is getting fed up of cleaning up, but at least this is the last time. They’ve arranged for them to have access to showers at a hotel close to the community centre, and he’s pretty sure he’s got all of the paint out of his hair now.

It’s a relief to get into something other than overalls, too. Thomas isn’t particularly vain about what he wears, and the overalls were definitely practical, but the wardrobe department on the show have done a really good job of taking the sort of things he’d normally wear and just dialling it up a notch.

Now that the work part of the day is done, he’s been given dark jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt. It’s the sort of thing he’d have picked to wear on a date himself, except that his jeans wouldn’t have been as expensive or as well cut, and the shirt wouldn’t have been as soft. It’s like they’re dressing him as himself, but upgraded. Thomas one point two.

“Do you know who you’re picking?”

That’s something else that Thomas has got used to much faster than he’d expected. Stephen just wanders in when he wants - within reason - and Thomas is already unphased by the lack of privacy.

“Yeah.” Thomas puts a tiny amount of product into his hair, as instructed by the stylists before the filming first started, and fixes his hair with a few swift motions.

“Not going to tell me?”

“Nope!” Thomas grins at Stephen as he turns away from the mirror. “You already know too much, don’t you want the element of surprise?”

Plus he’s pretty sure that Stephen’s texting the girls’ handlers. So much of this process is out of Thomas’ control, now that he’s getting more confident he’s taking the little moments where he can.

 

**

“So.” Iain faces the girls in the hotel lobby. He hates these bits where he has to be on camera. It’s not worth shipping Howard in for these tiny moments, but Iain’s much happier off screen. He’s a producer, not a presenter. “We told you to get ready for dinner, but there’s a twist.”

They school their expressions for the cameras, blending concern that maybe they’re not getting a group dinner with Thomas with excitement that there might be something better on offer.

“We have two restaurant reservations for tonight, each for two people.” Iain paces the explanation so that the cameras can catch their reactions. He might not like doing this, but he’s still good at it.

“One of you will have dinner with Thomas. The other two will have dinner together.” And _that’s_ going to be an awkward meal, probably. “We have one reservation at a Michelin star restaurant, and one at a fast food place. And this is how it’s going to work: Thomas has chosen one of you to join him for dinner. Inside one of these envelopes-” he pulls them out of the inside pocket of his jacket “-is the reservation for the Michelin star restaurant, and inside the other is the fast food place. The girl who Thomas has picked will select who gets to go to which restaurant.”

It’s hard to tell what they’re thinking, whether they’re confident about being picked or not. Kathy in particular has an excellent poker face.

“So, without further ado…” Iain drags the moment out. “Cassie.” Hannah’s face falls and she shoots a sideways glance at Kathy. Kathy’s poker face remains impassive. “Would you pick an envelope?”

Cassie’s smiling as she steps forwards and pauses to deliberate over the envelopes.

Iain isn’t sure which one he wants her to pick. He’s not even sure which is which himself any more.

They’d thought about rigging this, putting the same restaurant in both envelopes so that they could control which venue was used for the date and which for the awkward runners-up, but they’d been unable to decide whether it would be more entertaining to watch the runners-up sulking through burgers or holding stilted conversation through multiple courses, and in the end they’d left it up to chance.

Cassie picks an envelope and opens it with steady fingers. She pulls out the card, and her face gives it away before she can read it out.

 

**

Thomas is waiting for her in the car.

“Hey.” He smiles as she slides into the back seat next to him, and Cassie can’t help smiling back. Not that she wouldn’t be smiling anyway, but he just has that sort of smile.

“Hi.” There’s a second where she thinks that he’s going to kiss her hello, which would be fine except that he hasn’t actually kissed her at all yet.

“Where are we going?” Thomas nods at the envelope in her hand, and Cassie realises that he doesn’t actually know which restaurant they’ve got.

“Don’t tell him.” Stephen chips in from the driver’s seat. “He wouldn’t tell me who he’d picked to have dinner with.”

Cassie grins. “Okay!” She hands the envelope over to Stephen instead.

“Spoilsport.” It’s not clear whether Thomas’ comment is directed at her or at Stephen, but she just smiles at him again and puts on her seatbelt.

Thomas reaches for her hand as they set off, and their fingers tangle together in the gap between them.

Hopefully it won’t spoil the romance when he finds out that they’re going to Burger King.

 

**

This is a really nice restaurant. Like, really nice.

There’s no way Hannah could ever afford to eat somewhere like this normally. And Kathy’s a student nurse from a single parent family - she’s great at keeping her face blank but Hannah can kind of tell that she’s almost as overwhelmed as Hannah.

“Hey.” Hannah nudges her, keeping her voice low and hopefully off-mic. “Let’s just enjoy this.”

Kathy glances at her, and nods.

It’s still a weird set-up, the usual business with having everything on one side of the table so that they can be filmed, but even that’s starting to feel normal these days. They’re getting a set menu, carefully crafted to show off… well, whatever it is that the chef wants to show off. Hannah’s a little out of her comfort zone here.

Each course also comes with a carefully chosen wine, however, and maybe they’re a bit pricier than she’d normally have, but she doesn’t need to know which set of cutlery to use to enjoy a glass or two of wine.

Hannah picks up her glass and wait for Kathy to do the same. “Cheers!”

 

**

“How was it?”

Emily’s waiting up for her when Cassie gets in. There’s laughter coming from the other room, so clearly some of the others are also still up, but Emily’s sitting on one of the bar stools in the kitchen, both hands wrapped around a big mug of tea, and she’s waiting for Cassie.

Cassie can feel the smile spreading across her face. “It was amazing.”

There’s another burst of laughter from the other room and she glances towards the door.

“Kathy and Hannah got back about fifteen minutes ago.” Emily tells her. “They also had a good night, from the state of them.” She pulls out the stool next to her. “Anyway, come on. Spill.”

Cassie pulls herself up onto the stool, trying to figure out whether it’s bad form to gush about a date to another girl who’s technically dating the same guy.

“Tea?” Emily’s kept the pot within reach.

“Yeah, go on then.”

 

“Where did you go? I got the impression from the others that they got the nicer restaurant?”

Cassie laughs. “Burger King.”

Emily pauses mid-pour. “Seriously?”

Cassie nods. “Mm-hm.”

She’d been amused, when she opened the envelope, and then a little disappointed to miss out on the Michelin star, and then a little worried that Thomas would be disappointed to miss out on the Michelin star, but actually it was a good thing. They’d been set up in a corner table at a branch of Burger King which was not exactly shut down for them, but certainly being carefully managed to facilitate the filming. The extra chairs had been taken away, leaving them both on the bench seating.

“It was a bit weird, because they showed us to this table and everything, and then we had to get up and come in again for the cameras.”

Thomas held the door open for her on their second entrance. He’d done the same on their first entrance, too, the one that wasn’t being filmed.

“It was kind of like being a teenager again.”

Standing in the queue together, with a few members of the general public who’d been selected to provide an unobtrusive background and pretended not to notice them. Reading the menu together, because Thomas apparently hadn’t been into a Burger King for years and Cassie didn’t want to admit on camera that she knew the menu almost by heart from her regular Tuesday night treat with her colleagues. Thomas paying with the debit card Stephen had handed to him a few minutes earlier, and carrying the tray with both of their meals back to their allocated table.

And then it stopped being so strange. Sure, there was a space around them and a film crew focused on everything they said and did, but it was also just Thomas and Cassie, feet tangled together under the table, just chatting and sharing the barbeque sauce. Talking, getting to know each other. Like a normal date.

“But did you kiss him?” Emily’s got both elbows on the breakfast bar, totally absorbed in Cassie’s story.

Cassie nods, and Emily grins.

 

After taking much longer than normal to eat a burger and fries, and trying not to get grease anywhere, Thomas had walked her back out to the car. It was raining, just a bit, and Stephen had produced an umbrella which Thomas had held for both of them.

It would have looked a bit silly if she’d tried to carry it, given how much taller he is.

The rain gave an illusion of privacy, the cameras hanging back with a false sense of distance negated by the zoom capabilities and the microphones they both wore.Thomas had opened the car door for her, but she’d paused before getting in. He’d turned them slightly so that his back was to the camera and she was hidden from view, tucked in between the car, the door and Thomas, but it must have been unmistakable what they were doing when he bent to kiss her.

 

In the car, Thomas was instructed to sit behind the driver’s seat and Cassie to sit in the middle. It seemed like it should be impossible to ignore the camera in the front of the vehicle, but Stephen took them the long way home and with the options of sitting in a dark car with Thomas and either kissing him or _not_ kissing him, it wasn’t that hard to forget about the audience after all.

 

**

Howard smiles at the cameras. “The competition is getting tougher as we go on. In just a few minutes the phone lines will be open so that you can call in to save the girl you want to see go straight through to the next round. The girl with the most votes from each date will go through, and then Thomas will have to choose between the two remaining girls - who is he going to Ditch, and who is he going to Date?”

“The numbers are on your screen now for each of the girls. Calls cost 64 pence per minute, please don’t call before the lines are open as your vote won’t count and you may still be charged. Please ask the bill payer’s permission before calling.”

The camera cuts back to Howard, and he flashes his smile again. “Lines are open… now. We’ll see you next time, on _Ditch or Date.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Voting for all three dates in this round will be available in a link at the end of Date Seven.


	12. Episode Eight - Date Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Welcome back to Ditch or Date. Coming up tonight-”  
>  _Cathy holds a worm between her finger and thumb, holding it out towards Josie. Josie screams, and the shot cuts to Jessica rolling her eyes._  
>  _Thomas is sitting in the driving seat of a tractor, with the door open. He turns the key, and when the engine starts he and Cathy, standing on the ground, both cheer and Cathy thumps the side of the tractor to celebrate. ___  
> 
> 
> _  
> _“And at the end of the show, we’ll be opening the phone lines for the public vote.”_  
>  _

_Jessica, Josie, Cathy - Let’s put down some roots_

 

Today’s likely to be tougher competition. Cathy seems to have just clicked with Thomas, and although Jess has got her reservations about whether there’s much romance there she’s not going to dismiss the fact that Thomas might want a friend during this process. Josie’s the girl that Jess sees most of herself in - if there’s anybody else here who’s got a game plan that’s as well crafted as Jess’, it’s Josie. Some of the girls are here for fun, some of them are here for - well, nobody can really explain Emily - and some of them are here to win.

Josie seems to be a step ahead of her in the girlie camaraderie front - Jess doesn’t honestly care whether the rest of the girls like her or not, but Jodie’s comfortably in the middle of the pack and if Jess is getting isolated it would be easy for the show’s editors to play up on that. Jess isn’t counting on the viewer vote - her primary aim is to make Thomas want to keep her around - but it’s still important for the game plan that the viewers don’t hate her.

Contestants that the public love to hate on these shows might stay around for a while to keep the ratings up, but they never win.

So Jess has to make more effort with the girls, even if she doesn’t really like most of them. She might not be the right person for braiding hair and sharing confidences, but if somebody wants a workout buddy she can be there and at some point she’s sure she can manage to paint her nails with a friend or something. And if the girls like Emily because she feeds them, Jess can make sure that she’s getting in on that by making coffee or sharing a bottle of wine.

Wine and pedicures. That sound like a good thing to be filmed sharing. Jess makes a mental note to figure out who would be the best girls to suggest it to.

Right now, though, she’s got to figure out what to wear on her date.

 

It’s not exactly rocket science, working out what they’re doing. _Let’s put down some roots_ \- it’s got to be some kind of planting.

Jess opens her part of the wardrobe and picks out a pair of yoga pants which are a flattering shade of chocolate brown that will hopefully hide any marks if she gets muddy, and which are also easy to bend in _and_ make her bum look great. She’s got flat boots which go really well with them, a fitted long sleeved top and a gillet, because it’s probably not going to be that hot.

The other girls have laughing conversations about clothes, and go through one another’s things, helping each other make last minute outfit choices.

Jess doesn’t understand why none of them have _planned_ this properly.

 

**

The zoo was okay. The giraffes were great.

This is… not so okay.

It’s fine in principle - dig hole, put tree in hole, put dirt back in around the tree, save the planet.

It’s just that it rained last night, and there’s a lot of mud. And it’s not nice clean mud, like you might buy from the garden centre, it’s real out-of-the-ground mud and there are _worms_ in it.

Josie doesn’t like worms.

Cathy seems to think it’s hilarious, when Josie squeals, but then Cathy was probably the sort of freak who kept worms as pets when she was a kid. Jessica didn’t react at all when she turned up a spade full of wriggling yuck, so it’s just Josie who’s flinching away from what they’re supposed to be doing.

It’s worth it, though, to spend time with Thomas.

 

Josie gets to go first, again. She wasn’t expecting that, since she was the first to get one on one time with Thomas at the zoo - the first to get one on one time with him at all, actually, and she’s hoping that will continue to mean something - and so she was expecting to hang around for a bit getting muddy for no good reason.

Instead she gets to see Thomas while she’s still reasonably warm and not too muddy, and that’s… good.

They’re promoting the Woodland Trust with this episode - this particular project is relatively small scale and doesn’t seem to need any additional funding or publicity to achieve their aims, so they’re generally talking about carbon offsetting and the work that the trust does.

It’s a slightly awkward conversation, slightly unnatural, but they need to fit it in. Steven reveals between takes that Thomas is going to have similar conversations with all the girls and that somebody is going to edit them into a coherent publicity piece.

At least that means that Josie’s screen time won’t all be about trees, just because she was up first. She didn’t win the viewer vote last time, and she needs to be more memorable that just talking about trees.

One bonus of all the talking, though, is that she gets to do a certain amount of leaning on her spade and listening to the tree man explaining stuff, which is time that she’s not spending digging up worms. A well-timed shiver - genuine, it’s not that warm out here - gets her tucked up against Thomas, his arm around her shoulders while they talk about environmental things.

When there’s a pause in the filming, so they can get ready to actually do some digging, Josie looks up at Thomas through her lashes.

“You smell really nice.”

Thomas laughs. “Thank you.” He makes a point out of leaning in closer to her, as if he’s checking. “So do you.”

It’s only a pause in filming from the perspective of moving from arranging shots of them listening to arranging shots of them digging, of course. There’s another camera on them all the time, picking up these tiny interactions. Josie doesn’t look over to check, but she’s sure they’ve had plenty of time to get a good angle when she stretches up - damn wellington boots and the lack of heel height - and initiates a kiss which Thomas enthusiastically returns.

 

**

Cathy is missing when Thomas walks Josie back to the meeting point. Jessica’s chatting with some of the volunteers, and Cathy’s not there.

It’s Jessica’s turn, however, so it doesn’t really matter if Cathy’s popped to the loo or something. Thomas thanks Josie for spending time with him and says goodbye with a kiss on the cheek.

It’s unlikely to be a coincidence that Jessica greets him moments later with a smile and a kiss on the other cheek.

Jessica is pretty, and confident, and Thomas is starting to get the impression that she’s not that close to the other girls. She’s always pleased to see him, though, and not nervous like some of them are.

 

Thomas is kind of surprised at himself, how quickly he’s adjusting to dating multiple girls. He kissed five girls last week, and he’s kissed three girls already since yesterday morning.

When he’d been talking to Chris, the night before he’d gone up to London to film the party, that had been one of his biggest worries, that he just couldn’t see himself being able to form romantic connections with multiple women without feeling guilty.

Now it sort of worries him, when he thinks about, which he tries not to, that he’s able to go from one girl to another so easily.

Jessica’s easy to spend time with, though. She’s not hanging on his every word, waiting for his cue so that she can see where she fits, she just slots her arm through his and they stroll off together to plant some trees.

Jessica’s fit, too. Not just hot - they’re all hot, in different ways - but actually physically fit so that digging the hole and moving the sapling that they’re planting isn’t a struggle for her. A bit like with the rock climbing, she doesn’t need his help - no squealing and recoiling from insects for Jessica - but she’s connecting with him while they work in a way that some of the focussed girls don’t. Working with Kathy yesterday had been a little awkward, as if he was secondary to the task, but working with Jessica feels like a partnership.

It’s their second date, but Thomas gets a real image of what the future could be like in an established relationship with beautiful, competent Jessica.

Tree planted, they sign the little plaque that will tell anybody who cares in future that this tree was planted by Thomas and Jessica on _Ditch or Date_ , identical except for the names to the plaque he signed with Josie, and Thomas offers Jessica his hand.

“Where are we going?” There’s a direct path back to the meeting point, and Jessica’s clearly aware that this isn’t it.

“I thought we could take the long way back.”

Jessica gets it quickly, smiling at him. “Sounds good.”

They’re not ditching the cameras, of course, they’re just ditching the tree planting team and the second camera unit, so that when they set off along the paths which will wind around the site and drop them back at the meeting point from a new direction, they only have Hakim’s camera unit and Stephen trailing behind them, and these days that’s pretty much the same as being alone. It’s certainly an easy transition from strolling hand in hand to walking with his arm around her shoulders, and her hand sliding into his back pocket, to finding a convenient bench and not walking anywhere at all until Stephen politely interrupts to tell them that they really do have to get back now.

  


Jess is pretty pleased with how things went, on review. She didn’t get too messy planting their tree, although she didn’t stay too pristine because that would look like she wasn’t trying. Thomas was genuinely interesting in talking to her and spending time with her - Jess is sure he’s genuine, because he’s the kind of sweetheart who wouldn’t manipulate them even if he knew how, which he probably doesn’t. And then he took the lead on the way back, finding a way to extend their time together and getting in some quality one on one time. He might be genuinely sweet but the man does know how to kiss.

And her hair still looks great at the end of it.

Yes, all in all, that went very well.

 

**

Cathy’s not at the meeting point, and after a very brief conversation between Stephen and Bex, Thomas is led away to a different part of the site where Cathy is waiting for him.

Well.

Cathy’s jacket is hanging from a fence post and she’s up to her elbows in the innards of a tractor, but she looks pleased to see him.

“We’ve got footage of her overhearing that it wasn’t working, and offering to help.” Stephen tells him as they reach the area, which means that he doesn’t need to have a conversation about why she’s over here instead of waiting to plant a tree with him.

“Anything I can do to help?”

Cathy grins. “Sure.”

She also winks, which says _I doubt it,_ but not in a bad way. It’s not like Thomas knows much about engines.

He sits on a handy log - probably put there especially - and hands her the wrong tools when she asks for things, but she talks him through what she’s doing and soon he’s leaning over the engine with her. He still doesn’t understand half of what she’s talking about, but her enthusiasm is contagious, and it makes a change from digging.

Also, they let him sit in the tractor and try to start it when she’s ready, and that’s fun.

 

It’s going to be a tough decision picking who to take to dinner tonight.

 

**

 

“I’m really struggling.” Thomas sinks down onto the bed in the latest of a series of hotel rooms where he’s just getting changed and not actually staying. “I don’t know who to pick.”

“What are the sticking points?” Steven pulls the chair away from the desk and sits on it the wrong way round, folding his arms on the top of the back. “What’s making it hard to choose?”

Thomas sighs. “I keep going backwards and forwards between Josie and Jessica.”

“Cathy’s out of the running then?” Steven sounds like he’s making mental notes.

“I already know how I feel about Cathy,” Thomas hedges, aware of the camera. It’s very unlikely that this footage will be used because they like to keep Steven and the other production staff off screen as much as possible, but if he makes his feelings too clear on anything they might use it as soundbites. “I think I want to use this opportunity to get to know one of the others a bit better, explore the possibilities.”

Steven nods. “So… Josie. Tell me about Josie.”

“I had fun with her today, but… well, I don’t feel like I’ve spent any time with the real Josie. I’m getting first-date Josie and I’d like to know what she’s like when she’s not trying so hard to make a good impression.”

“Mm-hm. And Jessica?”

“It’s kind of similar with Jessica. It feels like we’re already steps ahead, but I’m also still not sure that I’m getting the whole picture.”

Steven stays quiet and lets him talk it out.

“I guess I really want some one on one time with each of them, but since I can’t do that…” He leaves a pause in the hope that Steven will admit to some flexibility on that point, but nothing’s forthcoming. “I suppose… I think I want to explore the possibilities in the relationship that feels deeper, like it’s got more… potential.”

Steven slowly sits up properly. “So, have you decided?” He reaches for the envelopes he’d left on the desk. “Do you know which girl is picking the restaurant tonight?”

Thomas take a steadying breath. “Jessica. I want to have dinner with Jessica.”

 

**

It’s just typical really. Not only does Jessica get the date with Thomas, but she also manages to pick the envelope with the romantic country pub, leaving Josie with Cathy and a visit to a fish and chip shop.

Jessica always seems to get what she wants. It’s not _fair._

At least Kathy and Hannah got to go somewhere nice and get drunk on fancy wine. Josie and Cathy are supposed to be eating in at one of the tables in the back room of the chip shop, and they probably don’t even have an alcohol license.

Cathy looks about as enthusiastic as Josie feels, which is something. At least she’s not in this on her own. Maybe she can play this for the viewer vote.

“This is… nice?” They’ve been taken through to the back room, where they will shortly be filmed choosing from the laminated menus. Josie needs to be a gracious loser.

“Excuse me.” Cathy gets the attention of one of the hovering staff members. “I don’t suppose you sell alcohol, do you?”

Josie’s heart sinks a little when the reply comes. “Sorry, love.”

“What if we bring our own?”

Oh, yes, great idea. That would be great if they could bring their own booze and _if they’d known that a few hours ago._ Very smart, Cathy.

“Yes, that’s fine. Not many people do, but it is allowed.” The girl smiles as she delivers this totally useless piece of news.

“Right.” Cathy grabs her bag. They all carry cute evening bags for these parts of dates, just big enough for lipstick and tissues. There’s not exactly any need for house keys or money, and none of they have seen their phones since the night of the party.

Cathy extracts a twenty pound note from her bag, much to Josie’s surprise, and then she grins at Josie. “There’s an offie over the road. I’m thinking cider, since we’ve spent all day planting apple trees?”

Josie shrugs. “Sure.” She likes cider, even if she’d had no idea what kind of trees they’d been planting.

“Cool. Be right back!”

There’s a moment’s panic from the crew, because they don’t have enough camera people to follow both of them at once, and then Sammy bolts after Cathy while the camera guy stays with Josie.

There’s an awkward pause. Josie really misses having her phone just for something to do in these moments, so for want of anything better to do she takes her seat at the table and studies the menu.

 

**

Howard smiles at the cameras. “The competition is getting tougher as we go on. In just a few minutes the phone lines will be open so that you can call in to save the girl you want to see go straight through to the next round. The girl with the most votes from each date will go through, and then Thomas will have to choose between the two remaining girls - who is he going to Ditch, and who is he going to Date?”

“The numbers are on your screen now for each of the girls. Calls cost 64 pence per minute, please don’t call before the lines are open as your vote won’t count and you may still be charged. Please ask the bill payer’s permission before calling.”

The camera cuts back to Howard, and he flashes his smile again. “Lines are open… now. We’ll see you next time, on _Ditch or Date.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Voting for all three dates in this round will be available in a link at the end of Date Seven.


	13. Episode Nine - Date Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Welcome back to Ditch or Date. Coming up tonight-”  
>  __
> 
> _Suze is crouching with her arm around a black dog. The dog jumps up to lick her face and knocks her down. Suze sits on the ground and laughs._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _Close up: a kitten being bottle fed._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> “And at the end of the show, we’ll be opening the phone lines for the public vote.”

_Emily, Suze, Mary-Ann - what’s your purr-fect date?_

 

Suze’s excitement is almost palpable when the car pulls up to where Thomas is waiting outside the animal shelter. Mary-Ann’s heart sinks. Suze is dog mad. Emily’s the sort of person who probably loves animals. Mary-Ann’s just… not keen on furry things.

They never had pets at home, too many of them in the house already plus Romy’s allergies. Grandpa had a cat when she was tiny, a cantakerous old tom-cat who’d just moved in with him one day and objected to children trying to get him to play or cuddle. Mum hates dogs, even small ones, because she’d been bitten by a Chihuahua when she was little and that fear had kind of transferred to her children.

Mary-Ann’s not _scared_ of animals. She just doesn’t really _like_ them very much. And Suze is practically vibrating at the chance to get at the dogs, and Emily looks happy about everything like she usually does.

 

The centre manager is almost as excited as Suze.

“First of all, I just want to say how pleased I am to have you all here today!” It’s weird to think that there are people out there who’ve been watching them on TV. None of the people they meet working on these dates are allowed to say anything to them about how things are going, but it’s still kind of uncomfortable to think that these people have already got opinions on them based on edited footage.

“We’re going to have you working in three areas where we would like to raise public awareness. So, we’re looking at the dogs who might not be quite so popular, to try to get people to adopt our harder-to-home dogs, we’re looking at the things that foster families need to do so we can try to get more people to volunteer, and we’re going to look at some of the more unusual animals that people might not think about when they want a rescue pet. We’re going to go round the three areas, and you can decide who wants to stay where.”

 

They start with the dogs. They’re all in kennels, each dog safely secured behind wire gates until somebody goes and _lets one out._ She’s on a leash, but she’s a big dog, and she’s full of energy and pleased to see them.

Suze is just as pleased to see the dog, though, and when she gets down on her knees to let it lick at her ears it’s fairly obvious that she’s going to stay here and work with the dogs.

“We’ll send Thomas back to you in a bit!”

 

The kittens are _tiny._ Mary-Ann could probably hold three or four of them in her cupped hands, if she wanted to, which she really doesn’t. Honestly, there’s no way that any one of these kittens is going to scratch or bite like Mr Whiskers used to, but they’re so small and she’s mostly terrified of hurting them.

“Shall I stay here?” Emily asks her. Her tone is casual, like she really doesn’t mind either way, and Mary-Ann suddenly remembers that a group of the girls had been talking about their pets when they’d only been in the house a few days and she’d mentioned not liking cats.

“Yeah, if you want.” At least birds will probably be in an aviary or something, and the thought of holding a snake or a… lizard or something is better than a cat. Nobody’s going to think she’s weird on TV if she’s a girl who’s not 100% comfortable with snakes.

“Great! Okay, the kittens are actually due for a feed really soon, so we should probably set that up right away, so Thomas, you’ll stay here with Emily?”

Thomas gives the centre manager a thumbs-up.

“Mary-Ann, if you’d like to come with me?”

 

The exotic animals are in a different part of the shelter. Mary-Ann is shown where the snake tanks are, and a monitor lizard, and then they take her through to the office.

“We’re going to film your bit last,” Cam explains, “so you might as well have a sit down and a cuppa.”

“You’re welcome to relax in here.” The manager pushes open the office door and they trail after her. Cam stops dead just inside the door.

“Oh, don’t worry. That’s just Alfonse. He’s harmless.”

Mary-Ann comes far enough into the room to see what Cam’s looking at, and there on a perch at the side of the room is the most beautiful grey parrot.

“Alfonse, please be nice, you’re on camera.”

Alfonse tilts his head and considers them, fixing his attention on Mary-Ann.

“Yo.”

 

**

Thomas has never really considered himself to be a cat person, but there’s something special about sitting on the battered couch in a side room, holding the smallest kitten he’s ever seen and trying to persuade it to feed.

“How are you so good at this?!”

Emily’s kitten is feeding greedily. Emily laughs, quietly so she doesn’t disturb it. “I’m just a natural at feeding. People, animals, it’s just what I do.”

It could be awkward, with the wrong girl, but just sitting quietly with Emily while they feed the kittens feels really natural.

“So, since you got the whole story of how I ended up applying for the show, what was it that brought you here?”

Emily glances up at him as she asks, and then returns her attention to the kitten on her lap.

Thomas thinks for a second. He’s covered some of his background in the footage they took for his introduction, but mostly that was about being single for a bit and being in the right place to look for love.

“My friend signed me up.” He admits, and Emily grins.

“Kind of like me, then!”

“Sort of.” Thomas shrugs, carefully so as not to move the kitten. “I… you said that your friends signed you up just for fun, sort of?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Well, Chris persuaded me to sign up because he thought it would be good for me. He’d just been helping me move house, and he was going on about how I’d been single for long enough, I needed to meet some girls, and I challenged him to find me a girl. And next thing I knew he’d found the website for the TV company looking for somebody to be on the show, and he talked me into it.”

“I suppose it’s not quite the same process when they’re looking for one person rather than twenty four.” Emily’s kitten gives up on the bottle, appetite conquered for now. “Did you have to audition or something?”

Thomas glances over at Stephen, unsure of whether he’s allowed to mention how complicated the interview process had been. There’s no harm in telling Emily, but it might make all this footage useless. Stephen shakes his head.

“Not really.” Thomas lies. “There were interviews, of course, because they wanted to be sure that I’m in this for the right reason.”

Emily must have caught the interaction with Stephen, even if she had been swapping kittens at the time, as she allows the subject to move on easily.

“Ready to fall in love?” She smiles at him and then turns her attention to persuading the kitten to latch on to the bottle.

“Yeah.” Thomas can feel his face go soft, as Chris would say. “Ready to fall in love.”

 

It’s a complete change of energy when he gets back to the kennels. Feeding the kittens had been chilled, cosy, sort of… safe, and when he gets through to the dog runs Suze is somehow controlling three large dogs with just one tennis ball.

“Hi!” She waves as soon as the gate is safely closed behind him. “Come and meet the guys!”

Somebody on the production team has watched Suze bonding with the dogs and has decided that the best way to manage this segment is to have Suze talk Thomas through what they’re doing. Thomas is happy with that, it’s less time with the centre’s staff and more one-on-one with Suze.

“Leave it! Good boy!” Suze takes possession of the tennis ball and rewards the dog, which clearly has some spaniel in its ancestry, with a ruffle of the ears. “You want a turn?”

She offers the ball to Thomas and he takes it carefully. It’s slightly damp and comes with the full attention of all three dogs.

“Ready?” He asks them, which is unnecessary because they very clearly are, and then hurls the ball towards the far side of the enclosure.

Suze laughs as the dogs trip over each other to chase it, and Thomas has to grin at her enthusiasm.

“Having fun?”

“So much fun!”

Any plans Thomas might have had to start their one-on-one time off with a kiss are derailed when all three dogs come charging back.

“So, let me do some introductions!” Suze waits for the lead dog - which has black fur and no immediately obvious breed - to give up the tennis ball. “This is Max.”

“Hi Max.”

Max wags his tail.

“Max has been here for a couple of months, because he’s just so bouncy that he’s a bit offputting.” Suze is crouched down beside Max, now, one arm around him as they angle for the cameras. “But he just needs somebody with lots of energy, like a family with teenagers, who can take him out for lots of - _exercise!”_ The last word is more of a shriek as Max jumps up right in her face and knocks her over, proving her point.

Suze just laughs, though, lobbing the ball overarm and sending the dogs skittering after it before she accepts Thomas’ hand up.

“And who’s this?” Thomas keeps hold of her hand as the spaniel-mix wins the race to bring the ball back. “Drop it… good dog!”

“This is Duke.” Duke backs up three steps in anticipation of the ball being thrown again, backing right into Max’s face. “Duke’s absolutely fine when he’s got people around him but he hates being left on his own. He really needs somebody who’s around a lot, maybe who works from home or who could take him into work with them.”

Duke and Max take off after the ball when Thomas throws it again, but the third dog has spotted Suze putting her free hand, the one that Thomas isn’t still holding, into her pocket.

“And this is Lola.” Lola delicately accepts the treat that she’d known was coming. “Lola’s actually been here the longest out of all the dogs, which is really sad because she’s such a sweetheart.”

“Why has she been here this long?” It’s pretty easy to guess, but Thomas needs to ask for the cameras.

“Because a lot of people are reluctant to take on such a big dog.” Lola lets Suze push her nose away from where she’s trying to get into her pocket for more treats. “It’s just sad, because actually somebody like Max is going to need more exercise, and Duke needs more attention. She’d be a lovely family pet, she just takes up quite a bit of space. Don’t you, sweetie?”

Lola pants her agreement, and then turns to Thomas to see if he’s more generous with treats than Suze is.

 

Mary-Ann is waiting for Thomas indoors. They’re not handling the reptiles, just chatting with the staff about the special requirements for looking after these animals and the reasons they end up in shelters.

“...generally a snake this size would need an adult mouse every 7-14 days.”

“So you don’t have to feed them every day?” Thomas has to admit that he knew pretty much nothing about snakes until about ten minutes ago.

“No, and it’s important not to over-feed them.” The guy who’s in charge of the shelter’s reptiles is obviously enjoying being able to educate people on the animals he loves.

“Stupid.”

Unless they want to change the whole tone of this section, however, it’s going to be mostly outtakes because the parrot that’s been sitting on Mary-Ann’s shoulder the whole time seems to have something scathing to say every time Thomas opens his mouth.

“I don’t think your parrot likes me very much.” Thomas jokes, and Mary-Ann reaches up to scritch Alfonse’s feathers.

“He’s harmless.”

 _“He’s funny.”_ Stephen mouths from behind Hakim and the camera.

“We always say, though, that it’s really really important to do your research before you think about adopting a snake, or any reptile.” The staff member is ready to wrap up the snake talk. “So if you’d like to follow me, we were going to show you just how much food we get through in an average week.”

He leads the way through the door, so that they can go and film a segment intended to show just how expensive it is to run a shelter and to encourage people to donate. Thomas catches the door and holds it for Mary-Ann.

“Bye now.” Alfonse holds eye contact with him as Mary-Ann passes.

“Be nice, Alfonse.” She reprimands, and he makes a weird creaking sound.

“Be nice, Alfonse. Be nice, Alfonse. Fuckit.”

 

**

Thomas dithers over which girl to take to dinner, again. Stephen’s not surprised that Mary-Ann’s the one he’s most sure about not taking. The parrot had been bloody hilarious, but he’d noticed the relationship cooling compared to the other two.

So it’s between Suze and Emily, and Stephen has to let Thomas talk it out, about how he enjoys time with both of them, and he didn’t feel he got as much as he was hoping for out of the time with Suze, and he wants to spend more time with her, but then he got extra one on one time with her on their first-round date, so maybe it’s not fair to invite her to dinner with him, and he wouldn’t mind spending the evening with Emily instead…

“Thomas.”

Thomas stops talking, finally.

“You don’t have to be fair. It’s not about giving every girl an exactly equal amount of time, it’s about finding which girls you want to develop your relationship with, and taking the opportunities to do that.”

 

**

Iain holds the envelopes with the dinner locations in one hand.

“So, tonight, each of these envelopes holds the key to a suite in this hotel.”

The girls look at one another, a little confused.

“In each of those suites is a kitchen, and in those kitchens are all of the ingredients needed to create a gourmet dinner. There is, however, a twist.”

Iain enjoys a twist.

“In one of those suites is a set of recipe cards. In the other suite is a private chef.”

He presents the envelopes with a flourish. “So, choose wisely - Suze.”

 

The message comes through about an hour later, summoning him to the suite where Emily and Mary-Ann are being filmed. Iain’s heart sinks when he read it - there are no details, but it’s never a good sign if they’re requesting his presence. Thomas and Suze have been getting on great while their chef prepares dinner, chilling on the couch in their living area and apparently getting about as risqué as you can get away with in front of a film crew, production team and kitchen crew.

Iain can’t imagine that Emily and Mary-Ann have fallen out, because neither of them seems to be the type to indulge in a screaming match. Hopefully there hasn’t been an injury or anything.

Bex is all smiles when she answers the door, however.

“Hey, just in time.” She steps back to let him in to a room where everybody seems to be smiling.

“Hi Iain!” Emily waves at him from the kitchen area. “Come and grab a plate, they gave us way too many ingredients.”

Iain turns to Bex. She’s supposed to be keeping them on track, this part of the date is supposed to give them footage of Emily and Mary-Ann awkwardly eating a substandard meal, and instead it seems to have turned into a crew party.

Bex shrugs. “It smells really good. And otherwise nobody gets to eat until we get home.”

Iain accepts defeat - and a plate.

 

**

Howard smiles at the cameras. “The competition is getting tougher as we go on. In just a few minutes the phone lines will be open so that you can call in to save the girl you want to see go straight through to the next round. The girl with the most votes from each date will go through, and then Thomas will have to choose between the two remaining girls - who is he going to Ditch, and who is he going to Date?”

“The numbers are on your screen now for each of the girls. Calls cost 64 pence per minute, please don’t call before the lines are open as your vote won’t count and you may still be charged. Please ask the bill payer’s permission before calling.”

The camera cuts back to Howard, and he flashes his smile again. “Lines are open… now. We’ll see you next time, on _Ditch or Date.”_

[You can vote here](https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/2SYC2ZW)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Voting is now open!](https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/2SYC2ZW)  
>  Voting will close shortly before midnight UK time on Thursday 8th November.


End file.
